


Arrow of Time

by Ludi_Ling



Series: House of Cards [3]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (Comics) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, BAMF Remy LeBeau, Betrayal, Black Womb Project, Darkfic, Deal with a Devil, Dubious Morality, F/M, Falling In Love, Minor Character Death, Mutant Experimentation, Mutant Powers, Mutant Rights, Mutants vs Statics, One True Pairing, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Post-Apocalypse, Reconciliation, Reconciliation Sex, Rogue's Psyches, Sexual Content, Time Travel, True Love, Violence, War, timestream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2019-06-09 01:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 161,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15256653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludi_Ling/pseuds/Ludi_Ling
Summary: Rogue and Remy are apart - Rogue is with Logan's team of X-Men, and Remy with Sinister.  When the two finally have their explosive reunion, Remy is led to a terrifying inevitability, which sets in motion a devastating and inescapable chain of events. With a war between mutants and statics on the horizon, can he, Rogue and Rachel cheat Fate and save the future?Part 3 of the House of Cards trilogy. Set in the Days of Future Past (comicverse) timeline. Darkfic. ILLUSTRATED!





	1. Entrapment

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.
> 
> Rating: Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.
> 
> Author's note: After nearly 9 years of my life the House of Cards cycle has come to a close - and while the Rogue and Gambit from this universe have declared their satisfaction that this is done, they'll always have more stories to tell. In the meantime, I'll let them walk off into their sunset. They've earned their due. :)
> 
> I'd just like to thank everyone who has shown an interest in this story over the years. Writing this has been the most beautiful torture, and I'm sure I can't do justice to the story my muses wanted me to write, but I hope you will all still enjoy it anyway. It has been a huge part of my life, and probably will continue to be so. When this is done, there will be other spin-offs I am hoping to post, an interactive site that will tie all the plot points to the 616 universe etc., and hopefully illustrated books, if anyone is interested. In the meantime, I hope you like this, nervous as I am to be posting. And since this is unedited, all constructive crit, suggestions and of course reviews are most humbly welcome.
> 
> Thanks to all my readers, past, present and future; and much love from,
> 
> -Ludi x

            A hundred years ago – maybe more – a young girl had written about this.

            It was a story, a story of three people whose lives would converge and diverge, weaving in and out like threads in a great tapestry, inextricably woven together, pulling apart only to intertwine once more.

            The girl spent a lifetime and more unpicking at the lives of these three favourite characters.  Picking, teasing, worrying at their paltry, puzzling existences.  Her pencil would chase their every step, her brush would shape their every movement, her pen would guide their every word.

            With time, she grew to love them.

            She grew to believe that they were _with_ her somehow, these characters with no names, these imaginary friends who seemed so vivid and true and yet she knew did not live.

            Not yet, anyhow.

            They coloured the darkness that shrouded her, their faces penetrated her blindness.  She did not need to see to read them.  The girls she had gone to school with had favoured fairytales and romances, but she… she read _life_.  And it was far more scintillating than any fiction.

            Her little triumvirate accompanied her through all the pain and the suffering and the loneliness.  They grew up with her, and whilst they grew to lead their own lives, the girl never felt them to be far away.

            The man and the woman became lovers, as she had always known they would, even before they did.

            And the third one, the one that the young girl had come to think of as her especial friend, the one who was as lonely and scared as she was… Well, she grew from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.  She became a _phoenix_.

            It gave the little girl hope.

           

            And there came a point where their stories all diverged.  Where all hope seemed lost.

            The man slipped back into shadows.

            The woman ran off to chase ghosts.

            And the phoenix-child, the starchild… Well, she disappeared.  Completely.  She disappeared and the little girl saw her no more.

            The girl never understood why her friend had gone, but she recorded it all faithfully, as she had become accustomed to. 

            She opened up the thirteenth volume of her diaries, to the next blank double page spread.  She took out her pencil and drew a triangle.  In the left corner, she drew the man, with the nasty shadow still beside him.  In the right corner she drew the woman, standing next to a ruined steel building.  And at the apex she drew the starchild, standing amid the chaos and the destruction with the entire world upon her shoulders; and the little girl felt sad.  She wanted to reach out into the future, to pluck them all up and hold them together in a warm embrace.  She wanted to tell them that it was okay, that they would make the right decisions.

            She took out her watercolours, her brushes.  She painted the figures with the fastidious concentration of every artistic child.  And when she was done, she looked down at her work with sightless eyes, her mouth twisted with grim pride.

            She looked at the starchild, and for the first time since she’d started having these visions, these dreams of the future, a name came to her.

            She whispered it out loud, held it close to her, cherished it as she would cherish the name of a beloved friend.

            “ _Rachel._ ”

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            Rachel Summers staggered blindly through wreckage and debris, step by painful step, hardly knowing that one foot followed the other.

            The smoke all but choked her; tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away furiously.  The smoke was an excuse.  It was an excuse to weep for everything she had lost on this day, this one day that had paid with the lives of so many.  All she owned now she held in her own two hands, cradled protectively in her arms.  She wasn’t going to let go of it now.  She wasn’t going to let go of the only thing she had left.

            Kate Pryde weighed like a ton of bricks; and yet Rachel hardly felt the weight of the older woman who was the most precious thing in the world right now.  To Rachel, it seemed that her own legs were heavier; that with every step she took, she was being pummelled another inch into the ground.  But she could not afford to stop; not now.  Everyone else was dead but her, and she was Kate’s last defence.  More than that, she was the last barrier between this hell and a future that was worth having.  If she failed in this last duty to her fallen comrades, she would have failed utterly.  She would have failed Time itself.

            Somehow she managed to stumble into a small alcove that had been created by a fallen-in building and a crumpled-in mess of high security fencing.  Concrete and metal tore at her clothes and her skin, but she barely heeded the sting of pain.  She hunkered down in the niche, refusing to let go of Kate, wrapping her arms around her friend as though about a small child.

            “It’s gonna be okay,” she murmured soothingly in the woman’s ear, even though she knew that she could not hear her; perhaps the words were more for her own benefit than anyone else. “It’s gonna be okay.”

            She buried her face in Kate’s shorn locks, trembled in the darkness, dried the wetness of her eyes in her hair.

            She had felt them die.  Every single one.  Magnus, Colossus, Storm.  Franklin.

            She’d felt them all in her mind, and the only thing stopping her from fully accepting the agony of it was the fact that – above everything else, above even her own life – she must preserve Kate’s.  She must preserve Kate’s.

            But here, in the darkness, with the world crumbling about her, with not a single soul left in the world to her, she was beginning to feel it.  She was beginning to feel that her heart had been torn to shreds.

            And that was the way it was.

            Everyone she loved died on her.

            Her mom, her dad, Xavier, her friends… Franklin.

            Franklin.

            He’d shown her what it was to love.

            That meant something profound and she didn’t know how to express it, nor the fact that he was now gone.  His death rent at the very core of her and she clung to Kate because there was no one else to cling to, there was no one else to comfort her and tell her it was going to be okay, even if he was never going to come back.

            A Sentinel lumbered past and she froze, instinctively trying to make herself as small as she could.  The only thing preventing her from being caught was the small nullifier Logan had managed to give her, and she could only hope that Kate would not be noticed because she didn’t have one.

            And where was Logan?  She wasn’t sure.

            All she knew was that somehow they had been betrayed, and that the Sentinels had been ready and waiting for them as soon as their plan got underway.  Her mind whirled through all the many faces she knew had been in on their scheme, skittered over them with a manic confusion.  She couldn’t settle on any one person that could have _done_ this – it was too much for her brain to comprehend.  What was the use in thinking about it if she could die at any moment?  For Kate’s sake she had to focus on one thing – and that was staying alive.

            She squeezed her eyes shut and went into that little place at the back of her mind where everything was safe and warm and far away from all the hurt in the world.

            And somewhere inside that small sanctuary she curled away from it all, dozing fitfully in the place between wakefulness and sleep.

 

            She was jolted back into her body an indeterminable amount of time later as Kate suddenly began to stir in her arms.  Rachel pulled back slightly, her breath caught in her throat as she searched the face of the older woman, seeing her eyes flickering into wakefulness.  Her thoughts scrabbled to comprehend what this meant.  Kate Pryde was awakening – yet nothing had changed.

            “Kate!” Rachel breathed in mixed confusion and relief as the older woman’s eyes slowly began to focus. “Thank God you’re still alive…!”

            Kate’s daze darted about her, this way and that; her forehead creased in consternation.

            “Where are we?” she mumbled, the words coming with the texture of one unused to speaking for a long time. “Did it work?”

            Rachel stared at her.  Her heart caught like a leaden lump in her chest.  She could barely speak herself.

            “Nothing’s changed,” she explained breathlessly. “Everything’s the same.  Did you do it, Kate?  Did you stop Senator Kelly from being killed?”

            No response came from Kate’s lips.  Her eyes went wide, and, her wits now fully returned to her, she struggled to her feet, gazing about her like a cornered animal.  As she did so, her expression slowly turned to dismay.

            “It’s not possible!” she gasped, her voice cracking with disbelief.  Her eyes fixed wildly onto Rachel’s face. “I – I prevented it!  I stopped Senator Kelly from being killed!  I phased through Destiny as she was about to attack – knocked her off balance… Kelly was alive when I left!  Why?  Why is nothing different?!”

            Even as the words left her mouth a sick realisation seemed to fall upon her.  She suddenly went very still, whispered; “Piotr…?”

            There was a question in the name – a question that she could not bear to articulate in any other way.  Rachel heard it; she couldn’t face it.  Her own loss seemed small in comparison to that of the woman before her.  She hung her head, the weight of the answer hanging heavily upon her.  It was an answer that could not be hidden; Kate read it in Rachel’s face as though it had been writ large.  The scream that came from her lips was the most awful sound Rachel had ever heard.  It stripped her breath away, cast her down lower than Ahab’s beatings, than Rogue’s betrayal.  She turned her head aside with tears in her eyes.  Something had gone wrong, and she didn’t understand it.  More disturbing was the news Kate had brought her.  Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that the killer of Senator Kelly was none other than Destiny.  Rogue’s foster mother.  The one who could see the future, and presumably, make moves to avoid the pain and confusion that now surrounded them – that she herself appeared to have wrought.

            She heard it then – the crunch of a clumsy footstep on rubble.  Her Hound senses kicked in mechanically, and she drew the distraught Kate deeper into the niche, hoping against hope that the woman’s scream had not been heard, yet knowing instinctively such a thing was unlikely.

            “I know you’re there!” a hushed, familiar voice sounded from nearby – it was unmistakably Tanya Trask. “So there’s no point in hiding, Rachel!”

            Rachel bit her lip, weighing it up carefully.  Tanya obviously knew she was there; and when she cast out her mind, she saw that the girl was alone, and that her only intention was to talk.  It was only for that reason that she slowly stepped out from the recess.

            Sure enough Tanya was there, a little distance away, atop a small pile of debris, steadying herself against the corner of a building.  There was a look of relief on her face as Rachel finally came into view.

            “What are you doing here?” Rachel asked her heatedly. “You’re supposed to be back at the Brotherhood headquarters…”

            A dismissive sneer crossed Tanya’s face, changing her features from pretty to ugly in a moment.

            “That’s what Logan told me to do,” she replied acerbically. “But I’m not the little girl he thinks I am.  Besides, I _had_ to be here.  I _had_ to protect my investment.”

            She jumped down from the mound of broken fencing and concrete, and Rachel digested her words with a sinking feeling of foreboding.

            “ _Investment_?” she repeated incredulously. “What are you talking—”

            “ _You_ , Rachel,” Tanya cut in, regarding the other with unwavering eyes. “I took a chance in setting all this up.  I told daddy not to harm you, but sometimes it can be difficult to keep those Sentinels under control…”

            “ _What?!_ ” Rachel blurted, almost choking on the shock. “You – _you_ did this?!”

            Tanya nodded without any trace of guilt; her expression was solemn.

            “Of course.  How else could I get your attention?”

            If Rachel had been surprised before, nothing could have prepared her for the matter-of-fact calmness that Tanya now presented her with.  She began to speak several times, her voice refusing to come out.

            “ _My_ attention?” The words finally emerged, but they barely seemed to come from her.  Tanya nodded.

            “Yes.  Why?  Would you have listened to me if I had spoken to you, face to face?  Not to mention, the others would all have been listening in on us, and I couldn’t have that.” Her countenance darkened. “I couldn’t have anyone else interfering.  Now that we’re alone together, we can discuss things rationally – just the two of us.  Don’t worry – I’ll keep you safe.  Well, safer than you would have been back in the internment centre anyhow.”

            Rachel almost laughed in a giddy head-rush.  The idea that any of this was rational, or _could_ be rational, was patently ridiculous. 

            “All right,” she conceded with what was false bravado. “You’ve got my attention, Tanya.  But what about the others?  They’re going to the Sentinels’ mainframe.  They’re going to destroy it and switch all the Sentinels off for good.  So why don’t you run and tell _that_ to your precious ‘daddy’?”

            It was a bluff – she knew all the others were dead, apart from Logan, and she didn’t even know where he was.  She didn’t think Tanya knew that though – which made her all the more surprised when the girl burst into laughter.

            “Destroy the Sentinels?” she hooted derisively. “That’s impossible!  It’s the Master Mold programme that controls them; and even if you destroyed the mainframe the programme would just keep running, daddy fixed it to replicate when it’s attacked, just like a virus.  He’s got several mainframes up round the country, and if you downed one, Master Mold would just migrate through the net till it found a new home.  That’s why,” she added bitterly, “the Sentinels _can’t_ die, not _easily_ anyhow.  Daddy modelled them on a smart swarm – Master Mold’s the queen bee, the Sentinels are the drones.  Even if Logan and the others got to the mainframe, the Master Mold program would just migrate – the drones would just warn her.”

Rachel barely had a moment to digest this new and troubling information when a low growl from beside her caught her off guard.  It was Kate, leaping out from her hiding place like a wounded lion from its den, springing at the unwitting Tanya with a shrill, savage shriek, clawing at the air with her nails.

            Unawares Tanya may have been taken, but she recovered her wits faster than thought.  The psychic bolt snapped out like a gunshot, clapping Kate, mid-air, between the eyes; the woman slapped to the floor in an ungainly heap.

            “ _Stop that!_ ”

            Instinct drove Rachel forward into a lunge at the girl, who brought her arms up in self-defence; their tussle was brief – Rachel had been a Hound and this girl, this pretender… she knew nothing.  It was only a matter of seconds before Tanya was locked in Rachel’s uncompromising grip, struggling and spluttering for breath.

            “Let me go!” she croaked hoarsely over the crook of Rachel’s elbow. “I’m warning you!  My dad’s not far behind, he’ll have you killed on sight!”

            But the words only served to tighten Rachel’s grip.

            “Nice try,” she hissed viciously. “But I’m worth more to Trask and his cronies alive than dead!  And now that I have access to my powers, he should be more worried about the fact that _I_ can kill _him_ on sight.  _And_ you, all at the same time.” Nevertheless somewhere at the back of her mind she knew that running into Trask was something best avoided; and so, gathering all the strength she had left into her underfed muscles, she dragged the flailing Tanya back into the niche.  She knew she was leaving Kate dangerously exposed, but she didn’t have a choice.  Tanya was the priority, and she wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to be making good decisions anyway.

            “What are you going to do?” Tanya rasped; even now there was still the old brazen grit to her voice. “Kill me?”

            “Why shouldn’t I?” Rachel asked, her mind racing, the rational part of her trying to fight through the red mist that had descended over her, making her tremble with rage, seriously tempting her with the idea of snapping the other girl’s neck like a twig.  It was infinitely doable; infinitely easy.  It was taking an inhuman effort just to stop herself doing it.

            “Because,” Tanya was replying, gasping for breath, “I need you to _help_ me!  _Please_!”

            Rachel was stunned.  She stuttered with anger and disbelief.

            “ _Help_ you?” she finally managed to spit out, and, “ _Yes!_ ” was the girl’s desperate reply – desperate enough for there to be a strain of truth in it.  Rachel heard it.  She could easily have ignored it.  All her years as a Hound had taught her to laugh in the face of weakness; and yet, as she heard it now in Tanya Trask, it touched the humanity in her that remained intact.  With barely a thought she released Tanya from her headlock, and the girl dropped to the floor on her hands and knees, sputtering, retching into the rubble.

            “Are you trying to tell me,” Rachel began through gritted teeth, “that you did all _this_ because you wanted my _help_?  Are you fucking _crazy_?”

            There was no response.  Tanya continued to cough and splutter noisily, and Rachel took the opportunity to scan her mind briefly, so subtly that it barely left a ghost of a touch on the other girl’s mind; and what she saw, in that short window of time, was that Tanya was telling the truth, in her own fashion.  What she also saw was a fractured mind, like broken shards of glass clinging desperately to a mirror frame.

            “ _Stop that!_ ” Tanya suddenly barked at her with such venom that Rachel was taken aback; she stared as the girl looked up at her with thunder in her eyes. “Stop scanning my mind!”

            There was a psychic backlash that was almost physical; Rachel took an involuntary step back, stunned that her opponent had even managed to detect the featherstroke of her psyche.

            “How is that possible?” she whispered, frightened for the first time by this child-woman that now stood before her.  Tanya grimaced bitterly.

            “What?  That I can sense every single thing you do?” Her voice was still hoarse, but was now cold and imperious. “I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with the fact that we share the same powers.  That day, when I was practising the astral projections and we first met, I was so shit at it I couldn’t see _anything_ on the astral plane.  But I saw _you_.  And I didn’t know why you stood out to me so much back then, but now… now I think I’m starting to get it…”

            It was falling again.  That red mist, clouding Rachel’s vision, her judgement.  She couldn’t get any words out; and Tanya continued in that same driving tone.

            “We can _both_ go to that place.  _The Timestream_ , you called it.  The only difference is, I can’t control it.  I’m weak and you’re strong.  You have to teach me how to control my powers.  You have to teach me to be as good as you.”

            Rachel was trembling now, the world closing in about her head, tunnelling in around her.

            “Why the hell should I teach you anything,” she growled, “after everything you’ve done?  Do you even _know_ what you’ve done?  The people your actions have _killed_?”

            The list of names, the row of faces paraded one by one before her mind’s eye, and when she got to Franklin – Franklin, who’d deserved life so much more than _she_ had – she almost choked.  But Tanya seemed not to have heard; either that, or the question was of no consequence to her.

            “If you come back with me,” she said instead, in a voice that was too peremptory to be wheedling, “back to my father’s labs, we can work on it together.  You can teach me how to control my powers, and then I can go back in time.  I can stop my daddy from building the Sentinels, I can make him love me again.  If I make him love me, he won’t want to make machines that kill mutants.  I can stop all of this from happening!  But I need your help, Rachel.  I don’t know how to do this on my own.”

            Tanya was mad.  Insane.  Rachel could have reached out into her psyche – perhaps fitted back together the broken pieces of her mind.  But she didn’t dare to reach out and probe her again.  Tanya, it seemed, was capable of matching her, even if she lacked control.  And that somehow made her more dangerous.

            “You’re crazy,” she returned in a low voice, trying reason where she knew force would fail. “Don’t you get what happened?  It didn’t work.  Kate went back in time, she prevented Senator Kelly’s death and _nothing’s changed here_.  I don’t know why it didn’t work but it _didn’t_.  You’ll never be able to change the future, Tanya.  You’ll never be able to make your dad love you.”

            She paused, seeing Kate stirring once more in the background.  Tanya, however, was too incensed to notice.

            “It _will_ work!” Trask’s daughter seethed. “It _has_ to work!  Kate must’ve done something wrong!  What does _she_ know about our time powers?!  You shouldn’t’ve trusted her to do things _right_!  I know that if we do things _together_ , Rachel, we’ll achieve great things!  We’ll save mutants!  Don’t you want to be a part of that?”

            Rachel tried not to look at Kate, who was now getting unsteadily to her feet over Tanya’s shoulder.  She willed herself into a tentative calm.

            “You don’t care about mutants,” she observed coldly to the younger woman. “You only care about yourself.  You only want your dad to love you.  But I’ll tell you something right now – you can’t _make_ anyone love you.  You can go back in time and drive yourself crazy trying to make things perfect, trying to make him care.  Preventing a murder is easy in comparison.  Instilling love in another is just about the hardest thing in the world, and you will fail.”

            Kate was mere yards away from Tanya now.  Rachel’s words had had the desired effect – Tanya’s eyes went wide, her face was bleached of all colour, her eyes blazed with the cold flame of madness.  With an animal cry she lunged forward at Rachel; but, just at the same moment, Kate did the same, her arms grasping the girl from behind, grappling her back as Tanya shrieked like a beast.

            “ _Go, Rachel!_ ” Kate screamed as she fought to keep the girl down. “You’re our only hope now!  Go back into the Timestream, figure out why it didn’t work and change it!  Bring back Piotr!  Bring back my babies!  _Go!_ ”

            A moment of hesitation froze Rachel on the spot, for the merest split second as she realised what Kate was asking her to do.  And then, that fraction of a second over, she set her jaw and made her decision.

            She thought of Franklin, she thought of her friends, of Xavier, of her mom and dad.

            And in a moment she had blinked out.   Disappeared, perhaps forever, into the Timestream.

            Tanya screamed an inarticulate howl of pure rage, but Kate held on as though for dear life.  Tanya was strong; but the older woman was far stronger.

            “ _Let me go_!” Tanya raged. “You have no idea what you’ve _done_!”

            Kate Pryde ground her teeth with the effort.  She had expected Tanya to give in sooner, but her fury showed no signs of abating.  There was only one thing for it.  Kate began to phase the two of them through the rubble at their feet, locking both herself and the flailing Tanya in a concrete embrace.  It was the only sure way she knew of keeping Tanya in one place for good.

            “Sorry,” Kate grunted against the girl’s wild struggles, “but I can’t let you get away with this.  Even if it means a Sentinel comes and gets you.  You’re staying right here.”

            And Tanya turned her furious gaze on the older woman, her eyes flashing with loathing and disdain.

            “ _No one_ can hold me!” she screeched and, just like Rachel had done before her, she blinked out of existence, leaving Kate grasping thin air.

            In the following stunned silence she barely heard Logan finally coming up behind her.

            “What the _fuck_ was _that!_ ” he exclaimed, having just seen the tail end of Tanya’s disappearance.  Kate turned to him, her ears ringing, her heart hammering in her chest, the adrenaline crashing violently through her veins.

            “Tanya,” she answered in a weak voice. “She has Rachel’s powers.  Her chronoskimming powers.  She can travel through time too.”

            Logan gaped.

            “ _What_?  She some kinda mimic?”

            But Kate shook her head slowly.

            “I… I don’t know…”

            It all came crashing down around her then.  There was an audibility to it, a _snap,_ that had her reeling.  Her senses went into free fall; her knees almost buckled and Logan, alarmed, caught her.

            “It didn’t work,” she moaned into his shoulder. “Logan, _it didn’t work_!”

            He said nothing, merely put his arms about her.  She wasn’t sure if he even knew how many of the others were dead.  Layers of pain gripped her, swathed in a protective coating of numbness.  She felt it all heaving beneath; a single touch, a single prod, and she knew it would all come flooding out and she would fold completely.

            “Where’s Rachel?” she heard him ask at last, and she looked up at him, tears standing in her eyes as she fought to hold them back.

            “I told her to go back into the Timestream,” she almost wailed. “I told her to try and make things _right._   And then that Trask girl… She must’ve gone after her!  What’ve we done, Logan?!  What if Tanya _kills_ Rachel?  What if we don’t have any chances left?!”

            She couldn’t hold it back then.  It all came cascading out of her in a torrent, all the many years of loss magnified in this single day where she seemed to have thrown away more than all those years put together.

            “It’s my fault,” she sobbed into his chest. “I agreed to go ahead with this and now everyone’s dead and it was all for nothing!”

            And he shushed her gently, ran his fingers through her shorn locks, comforting her when he knew it was impossible to do so.

            “It’s not your fault, Kate,” he assured her softly, and she had never heard such a depth of sadness in his voice before. “It’s not your fault.  It was what we _all_ wanted.  We tried.  And we failed.”

            He touched her wet cheeks, lifted her face to look into his and with a certainty she didn’t feel he said:

            “Keep hopin’, Kate.  Rachel will come back.  And if Destiny’s predictions are anythin’ t’ go by, she’ll make things _right_.”

 

*          *          *          *          *


	2. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rogue follows in Gambit’s footsteps, and finds out what she thinks is the whole truth from the Black Womb.

_September 2014_

 

            A lone figure trudged towards the ridge that housed the last inhabited outpost of the Tularosa Basin.  The man at the tumbledown gas station looked over his newspaper and his tin cup of gritty coffee and stared.  There was a time – when he had been much younger – that there had been many comings and goings on this barren and lonely stretch of road.  That was back when the government had all sorts of top-secret projects going on down in the desert.  He’d been used to seeing the military and the civil servants being flown in, to the oddballs and the conspiracy theorists driving by in their four-by-fours, stopping over for a fill-up and a quick beer or a coffee before they left with their cameras and their binoculars and their crazy ideas.  Not that he had minded particularly.  He and his dad had made a fine little fortune out of the whole business.  They’d opened up a small B&B and a pokey diner.  They’d been able to afford a spanking new truck and an extension to their little shack.

            Thirty years later, and things had certainly changed.

            Dad dead and buried, Sentinels round every urban corner, that crazy ass test facility blown up, his little empire falling to bits around him, and his head of hair pretty much gone.

            The odd sightseer still came.  Not in the regular trickle that had flowed in all those years ago.  That had long ago dwindled to the drip, drip, drip of the die-hard ufologists and conspiracy theorists.  And then there were the odd rarities, the ones he couldn’t place.

            Like the girl walking up to his crumbling gas station in a pair of sturdy walking boots, denim hot pants and a string vest, brown hair damp with sweat caught up in an unruly ponytail.  She poked her head through his window, called out in a voice that flowed as sweet and undulating as the Mississippi River, “’Scuse me, sir!  Ah’m lookin’ t’ find the old government test facility that used to be down here.  Went down nearly thirty years ago or so.  Couldja tell me if Ah’m headin’ in the right direction?”

            The man laid down his paper and stood up, approaching the vision at the window as though to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.  He couldn’t count the weeks since someone had last passed this way.

            “The test facility you say?” he asked, readjusting his cap and scratching his scalp agitatedly. “There’s a lotta them round here, miss.  But if it’s the one that fairly blew up all those years back then, yeah, sure.  It’s right down there, in the basin.”

            The girl dumped her rucksack on the windowsill and unzipped it.  The man watched her as she took out a map.  It was a long time since he’d encountered any passersby, but he certainly couldn’t remember seeing any passerby as striking as her.  She looked like she’d been travelling for a while, but there was something refined, unusual about her, punctuated most markedly by the shock of white that tumbled through her brown hair.  Her skin was pale, only slightly bronzed by the heat of the New Mexico sun.  He’d never seen anything like her before in his life.

            She unfolded the map on the sill before him, swivelled it round so that he could see it.  It was a chart of the surrounding area.

            “Any idea where it would be on this map?” she asked, and he looked down at the paper, scanned it with the glance of someone who was well-used to giving directions to strangers.

            “Well, lemme see,” and he scratched the same part of his scalp again – her looks made him oddly nervous. “It’s round about… here.” He pointed out a spot in the middle of nowhere in particular – a dip between two precipices.  He looked up at her worriedly. “You sure it ain’t the Air Force base or the missile range you’re lookin’ for?  There ain’t nothin’ round that ol’ test facility no more.  Nothin’ to see ‘part from yuccas and bits o’ metal.  Most folks go out t’ see them lights in the sky…”

            “Nah.” And she gave the sweetest smile. “Lights don’t interest me.  Let’s just say Ah’m seein’ the sights.”

            She folded up the map again, tucked it back into her bag.

            “Thanks, sugah.”

            And without another word the vision turned and left, leaving the man scratching that same bald spot on his head, blinking in the blinding sunlight after her.

 

            Forty-five minutes later and the girl sat in the paltry shade of a greasewood bush, mopping the sweat from her face and her hair, sipping from one of several bottles of water she’d brought with her.  The map lay beside her, creased and dirty and spotted with the white desert sands.  Ahead of her another ridge rose high into the distance – on the other side, if the man at the gas station had been correct, lay the ruins of the Black Womb test facility.  She looked overhead.  The sun was high in the sky, the great blue expanse inhabited by nothing more than a falcon circling lazily overhead.  She closed her eyes a moment.  It was too hot to relax, too hot not to try.

            “Have Ah come the right way?” she murmured to herself softly, half dozing in the heat of the sun.  There was no spoken answer to her question but the soft fluttering as of butterfly wings beneath her skull, a warm sweetness that had kept her company through many lonely hours.

            _I walked dis way, Rogue.  I’m sure of dat_. _Just over de ridge, you’ll see it._

            A smile touched her lips; the sunlight blazed like fire through her closed eyelids.

            “You sure about that, hon?” she murmured back, and he flickered there, briefly, like candlelight in the darkness.

            _Trust me.  It’ll be there_.

            And away he swam again.

            Rogue sighed and leaned further back against the bush.

 

            It’d taken her months to get this far, and now that she was so painfully close to her goal, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to get past those last few kilometres to whatever it was she was supposed to find on the other side of that ridge.  The only strength she now possessed was the fact that she had toiled so far over so great a distance that it was impossible for her to turn tail and flee now.

            When she’d first started out from Chicago in the late summer, she’d had a destination to get to and not much of a plan.  She’d bused most of the journey out of Illinois before running out of cash.  By the time she’d smuggled herself over the state line into Missouri she’d been desperate.  Remy had always been resourceful, but more to the point he’d had deep pockets.  She didn’t have much of either.  In St. Louis she was forced to pause and take stock.  There was no way she could make the rest of the trip to New Mexico without funds.  So, she’d dyed her hair in a shopping mall restroom and managed to wheedle her way into working a single evening pulling pints in some dingy bar.  Cash in hand.  She blew most of it on renting a closet-sized room in a decrepit motel.  A whole month went by before she managed to scrape together enough to move on.  And move on she did.  Trains were a luxury, but they were too well-policed, worse than the interstates and the toll booths.  She’d hitchhiked her way to Oklahoma City.

            More bar work.  She settled in a nightclub where the music was loud and the lights were dim, where colours flashed and every girl was as pretty as the next when a man had drunk enough.  She counted herself lucky she had the bar between them and her.  It didn’t stop some of them from waiting for her to get off work just so they could harass her – it happened to all the girls, she was no exception.  She’d got a rep soon enough – touch the Rogue and she’d let you know what she thought with her fists.  She wasn’t afraid of using brute force if she had to.

            And yet in a way, she’d learned to enjoy the work – surly patrons, wandering hands and all.  Making an honest living, earning a wage – these were things she’d never really known.  For the first time in her life, she learned to stand alone.  No Gambit, no Brotherhood, no X-Men.  Everything she had, she owned.  They were the fruits of her labour.  She answered to no one.  Her world was what she made of it, every last spoil scraped together with the work of her bare hands.  And there was a pride in that.  A meagre one, but she had earned it, nonetheless.

            It was only during the nights, in her little chocolate box room, that she would allow herself to retread the worn cycle of more meaningful days.  She would lie in bed and touch the space beside her and think of _him_.  Of Remy LeBeau.

            She would stare into the darkness, into the emptiness, and the more she tried not to think about him, the closer he would seem.  After they’d first left New York City on their journey to Chicago, they’d spent a lot of time together in places like these.  Nameless places: squalid hotels and featureless motels.  It’d brought back too many memories.  Too many needs, too many desires.  She’d close her eyes and delve into the quiet, forbidden place in her mind, like a child gleefully opening a box of forbidden candy; and she’d skate so close to the edge that sometimes she feared she’d lose herself forever.

            Some nights, she didn’t think she’d care if she did.  Far better to lose herself in him, than to be lost as her forever.

 

            Rogue opened her eyes slowly, drank a little more of the water.

            The psyche of Gambit was the only companionship she’d had in the entire length of her journey, apart from the odd precognitive dream Irene would send her way, and those were things she’d rather forego at any cost.  She was conscious of the fact that she was unable to form any kind of real relationship with the Remy in her head, but it was a comfort to have him there nonetheless, even if most of the time, all she’d do was sync with him and just _feel_ him there like a ghostly presence at the back of her mind.  Sometimes that presence would be more visceral than others.  Like those nights when she was feeling especially needful and she would feel him there like a warmth burning up her bare skin, so close that she could almost smell the scent of him.  And it was times like those that she’d force herself to withdraw, to sever the ties, to let go of him.  She couldn’t allow herself to become hooked on something that wasn’t _real_ , not in a physical, tangible sense.  He was a comfort, but, sometimes, he was also a danger.

 

            A little of her strength regained, she stood.  She began to climb that ridge, every laboured footstep a footstep nearer to her destination.  And finally, she stood before it.  The place that all those months of blood, sweat and tears had brought her to.

            The ridge she stood upon gave way to a valley, and there, nestled in something of a bottleneck between the two plateaus, stood the remnants of the Black Womb test facility.  She was almost surprised to see how little there was left of it.  If the answers she sought were here, she wasn’t sure where she was going to find them.  The place had been stripped bare.  She didn’t expect to find anything concrete here.

            Nevertheless she moved forward, and the only reason she did so was because she felt sure that Remy had walked this very same path not so very long ago.  She could almost feel him striding right there beside her, down the slope, feet sinking in the sand dunes with the sun beating down on their backs and the sweat rolling off of their skin.  They walked up to the ruins together, side by side.  It took the edge off of her loneliness; it took away the sharpness of her doubt.  And when she stopped and stared up at the ruins, he stopped right there beside her.

 

            Black Womb was a fitting name.

            The remnants of the building, charred by a long dead fire, shot upward from the sands like a black claw grasping skyward.  Who knew what secrets that gnarly fist held?  On the face of it, it seemed there were none.  The entire area spread out before her, arid and barren.

            Rogue stood in the twisted shadow of the ruin, her eyes flickering shut.

            _You called, chere?_

            Remy’s voice tumbled like softly flowing whiskey in her mind.

            “Shh,” she whispered. “Ah’m tryin’ to concentrate.”

            _I know,_ came the amused reply. _You need my help.  Always thought I was usin’ you for a good time, chere?  Looks like you’re gettin’ your own back now…_

“Hush, sugah.  Wish it was a good time Ah was usin’ you for, but it ain’t.  This is business…”

            His laugh was like the pulsing of butterfly wings beating beneath her skull.  It was almost as if he had taken her hand in his own without her feeling it or touching it.  When she opened her eyes again, he was right there with her.  They were synced.

            She stepped forward, into the bowels of the ruins.  She could almost see him, a few paces ahead, guiding her, a phantom leaving nothing but invisible footprints for her to follow.  He led her onward, urged her to follow him, and she, obedient, didn’t question that he would show her to what she sought.

            She must’ve walked no further than a few hundred yards when she stopped.  The endless shifting of the sand at her feet had given way to a firm _thud_.  She looked down and saw, half obscured beneath her boot, the bright sheen of metal.  She dropped to her haunches and brushed away the white sand; in a moment she had uncovered what appeared to be a hatch, locked only by a simple mechanism.  She turned it, knowing he had; opened the hatch and clambered inside, as she knew he had done so too.  And when she stood inside that long, grey, musty corridor, under the buzzing lights her entrance had switched on, she knew she was standing exactly where he had.

            “So where to now, Remy?” she whispered to herself, the soft sound of her voice echoing sibilantly in the silence. “Where did you go from here?”

            There was no answer, not in words – yet she found herself tracing her way through the passageway as if bidden by some invisible hand to do so.  As she walked, she looked about her curiously.  Once this place had boasted state of the art technology – now all it seemed to boast was cobwebs and Cold War architecture.  Yet again she doubted anything could be found here; but even as she thought this she came to a standstill outside an already open door.  The singed remnants of a blown apart locking mechanism left her in no doubt.  Remy had been in here.

            Rogue peered inside.  Within she saw the mangled disarray of shelves and filing cabinets, papers strewn about the floor thick and white as snow.  She didn’t second guess.  She waded in.

            It was cold in here, frigid after the blazing heat of the desert above.  Rogue felt her flesh goosepimple and she rubbed her arms absently as she stepped into the middle of the room, coming to a hesitant halt.  At her feet the papers lay silent and unmoving, locked in their own timeless secrets.  She was reminded, briefly, of the room she had made for the psyche of her foster mother, Irene Adler, the prison in her head.  There too pages had been scattered about the floor, pages she had guessed held the secrets of the _Libris Veritatus_ , Destiny’s prophecies of the future.  The similarity between the two images struck her and she knelt down, cast her eyes over the pile of sheets about her.  One stood out.  She picked it up, lifted it to the light.  It was burned, mottled in a strange, distinctive pattern.  Her mouth twisted with recognition. 

            Remy had stood right here; his powers had touched this paper.

            She stood too, dropping the piece of paper as she did so, letting it flutter downward to join its companions at her feet.

            “Why were you here, Remy,” she murmured softly to herself. “What were you lookin’ for?”

            “Me,” a voice answered unexpectedly behind her, and she swung round, seeing the scrawny figure of a withered woman approaching her from the inner recesses of the room. “He was looking for me.”

            Rogue sucked in a breath.  She had expected to find many sorts of answers in this place, but not this… thing.  This shrivelled, monstrous facsimile of what had once been a woman.  The clothes she wore sagged from her bony limbs; her hair clung to her scalp in great grey, matted clumps, as if unwilling.  Her skin was pasty and decayed.  The creature before her was nothing more than a rotting, walking corpse.

            The thing cackled as it advanced towards her, as though it had read her thoughts.

            “Yes, you find me repulsive,” it croaked gleefully. “But of course, a pretty thing like you would.  That’s the worst of beauty – looking in the mirror and facing one’s charms every day is enough to make one complacent.  I was beautiful once,” the thing added, with the air of trying to convince the other of a profound truth. “I never once thought I would turn into _this_.”

            The thing frowned, lost in a moment of tortured reminiscence.  Rogue, having got over her initial sense of revulsion, was finally able to speak.

            “Who are you?” she asked, and the thing seemed to come out of its reverie, staring at her narrowly.

            “What do you think?” it snapped. “I am the Black Womb, of course.”

            The Black Womb.  Rogue frowned.

            “But Ah thought the Black Womb was the name of the project…”

            “So it was, so it was,” the thing replied irritably. “But it was named after _me_.  _Mine_ was the womb, after all, the one that carried many of the subjects of Dr. Nathan Milbury’s grand experiment.  Or, in other cases, my genetic code was implanted into others.  It is all the same,” she continued, waving a hand impatiently. “I am the progenitor mutant, or so the good doctor once told me.”

            She cackled again.  Rogue made no response.  In the months she had spent making her way to this place, she had read through an awful lot of the two discs Remy had left behind in Chicago – the discs marked _Black Womb 1_ and _2_.  She knew enough to know now who this creature was.  She spoke the name falteringly.

            “Amanda Mueller,” she murmured. “That’s who you are.”

            The woman looked displeased, as if she did not wish to be reminded of anything that tied her to her former life.

            “Yes, yes,” she snapped crossly. “That was my name, once.” Again she waved her hand, as though the name was nothing more than an inconvenience.  And again her eyes moved to Rogue with a shrewd rapacity. “So, was it the boy who led you here?  Did he tell you to speak to me?  He should have known better than to think I would talk to unwelcome guests.”

            She turned aside, muttering cantankerously to herself.

            “If you’re talkin’ about Remy,” Rogue replied coolly, “no, he never sent me here.  Ah’m here on mah own account.”

            “ _Really_?” the Black Womb snorted suspiciously. “Yet you just spoke of him as if he had led you here.”

            “It’s complicated,” Rogue sighed. “Ah have a trace of him, in my head.  My powers allow me to absorb him.  His thoughts, his memories, his powers, his…inclinations.  Ah know he’s been here.  Why or what for exactly… that’s what Ah’m here to find out.”

            The woman’s face was suddenly alert as Rogue explained all this to her.

            “Interesting,” she mused at last. “Yes – very interesting.  Your power, that is.  Yes, I can see why he was so interested in you.” She paused only momentarily, allowing Rogue no time to question her before ploughing onward; “You’re right.  The beautiful boy was here.  He wanted to know if he was born here.  I told him that he was.” She cackled again. “Does that disgust you, pretty thing?  To know that he was born here?”

            The woman laughed harshly to herself, needing or wanting no answer, amused merely by the question itself.  Rogue looked on with an expression of disdain and pity.

            “So he _was_ a product of the Black Womb project,” she murmured quietly to herself.  She had thought Amanda Mueller would not hear her words; but however deranged the woman appeared to be, her hearing was as acute as ever.  She stopped chuckling and looked piercingly at Rogue.

            “Yes.  Yes he was.  And how.” Her voice rose to a mocking crescendo. “Essex’s crowning achievement, he was.  The jewel in his crown, the apple of his eye.” She made a rude noise, something between a cackle and a snort. “Remy LeBeau, the greatest mutant ever to walk the earth – or so Essex believed at the time.  He is nothing more than a disappointment to the good doctor now.  Although,” and her face turned despondent, “there is still potential in the boy yet, yes.  He has strength – in unknown places.”  Her mouth began to flicker between a wry smile and a frustrated frown, and Rogue took the opportunity to speak.

            “Strength in unknown places?  What do you mean?”

            Amanda Mueller sighed – whether out of sudden boredom or despair Rogue found difficult to tell.

            “Remy LeBeau is an Omega level mutant – capable of limitless power.  But he was unable to control those powers when he had them.  Those fools at the Thieves Guild could never have given him the tools necessary to gain control of his birthright.  The power he possessed was so all-encompassing he could have destroyed everything in his path; yes, and himself with it!” She grimaced sullenly, her wrinkled face crumpling. “And so who should he unwittingly seek out to give him control of those powers?  None other than the one who had made him!  Sinister!  And Sinister knew him for what he was, even if the boy himself didn’t at the time.  He agreed to help him.  It was a way, I believe, of keeping him in his power.”

            Rogue held her breath, feeling, at last, that she was beginning to understand something of what had motivated Remy to stay in Essex’s thrall for all those years.  Amanda nodded at her, seeing that she understood.

            “Yes.  He excised that part of the boy’s brain that gave him access to the higher level functions of his power.  Essex still has that part of him in his possession.”

            “And that’s the hold he has over Remy…” Rogue whispered.

            “A hold you call it.  Perhaps.” Amanda scowled.  She looked… thwarted.  It was the only word Rogue could find to describe her expression.  She turned aside, muttering to herself, lost in a thread of thought that seemed to take her far away.  Again that feeling of mingled pity and disgust surged in Rogue.  Whatever had consumed this creature had taken her to the precipice of madness.  It was an insanity that burned bright and hot, and the root of it was called hate.

            Amanda no longer appeared to realise Rogue was there.  She turned and would have walked back to wherever she had appeared from had Rogue not stopped her.

            “Wait.”

            The word was spoken in a low voice, yet somehow Amanda heard it.  She turned back, her expression closed and watchful once more, this time more curious than ever at the young woman who stood before her.

            “You said Remy was here,” Rogue began quietly. “Do you know where he went from here?  Did he go back to Sinister?”

            Amanda’s eyes narrowed even further, till they seemed to resemble nothing more than glittering gimlets.

            “How should I know where the boy went?” she snapped. “Although it is possible that he went back to Essex, yes.  He wanted to kill him.  But I told him it was impossible.” Her eyes glittered with a malevolent hatred, her wrinkled mouth screwing in a demonstration of unparalleled loathing. “No – I am afraid that the boy is fated to belong to Essex.  Essex made him, after all; Essex made him as his pawn, his plaything – and something more.  The pawn rises against its master – but the rebellion is futile.  The bond between the two,” and the creature snickered mirthlessly, “is far too great.”

            Her glance moved back to Rogue curiously, almost distrustfully.

            “Is it your plan to break the bond, pretty one?” she questioned in a thin voice. “Is it?”

            Rogue let a breath linger in her throat.  She had never come here with a plan in mind, never thought to conquer anyone or anything.  The only thing she wanted to know was why Remy had never come back.

            “Ah just want to know the truth,” she murmured; and the old woman laughed.

            “The truth!” she echoed mockingly. “There is no easy way to speak it.  Remy LeBeau was born to the Black Womb, and he was lost to it.  He was made – constructed – coldly and passionlessly, to be a weapon; to be a testament to the genius of Dr. Nathaniel Essex.  He was born of pride and hubris, of a loveless vengeance against those who had hated and despised his maker.  He was created to prove a point, and to destroy those that would not heed it.  And so.  There is your truth, my dear.  Remy LeBeau is not a man, he is a _thing_.  He was a thing _we_ created in order to fulfil everything Nathaniel and I had ever dreamed of, and now he is a disappointment. But more so, I feel, to Nathaniel, than to myself.”

            A hideous smile flickered over her lips, and Rogue saw that this woman, this monster, had lost so much in her life already that she expected nothing more than that her paltry grievances be avenged.  She thought of Remy, hearing all this just as she had, and her heart twisted painfully.  He had not returned to her – perhaps out of shame, perhaps because Essex could offer back this missing part of him, this last puzzle piece that would restore to him whatever it was he had meant to be.  She knew what the truth meant to him.  She knew it outweighed whatever it was that she could give him.

            She turned to leave, unable to thank this creature for all the bitterness that the truth had given her; but this time it was Amanda that called out “wait,” her voice now lined with an undercurrent of rapacious inquisitiveness.  Rogue stopped and swivelled back round.  Amanda was looking upon her with all the hunger of a preying mantis.  It surprised and unnerved Rogue to see that her expression was one of greed.

            “What?” she asked quietly, and Amanda moved towards her as though drawn to a flame.

            “You intrigue me, pretty one.  That you should come back after all these years, just as he did…” She paused, and Rogue was about to question her in surprise when she continued again musingly; “I remember you, of course.  One would not soon forget those eyes, or that hair.  It makes me wonder.  Why are you really here, pretty one?”

            Rogue stared at her, her brows knotted in dread and confusion as the words spiralled around her.

            “You… _know_ me…?” she breathed, and Amanda nodded sharply.

            “Of course I do!  They brought you here, didn’t they!  When you were a newborn.  Because you had the X-gene, like the other ones!  Essex knew you were special.  You had a mark, you see, from birth, just like the boy had, with his eyes.” She reached out and touched the white lock of hair at Rogue’s cheek, and Rogue instinctively drew back, repulsed.  Amanda saw her expression and dropped her hand, laughing quietly. “But you were lost to him too, when I destroyed this place.” Her eyes momentarily roamed the wall with pride at the remains of her handiwork, before locking on Rogue’s again with overt suspicion. “Tell me – did he find you again?  Was it _he_ who sent you here, as he sent the boy before you?  Was it _Essex?_ ”

            She spat out the name again with such loathing that Rogue felt the woman’s dank and decaying breath on her face and she couldn’t help but flinch.

            “Ah don’t know what you mean,” she retorted coldly. “But if for some reason you’re thinkin’ that Ah’m in league with Sinister, you’re mistaken.  Ah’m here because Remy came here, and Ah want to know why.  That’s all.”

            For a long moment neither said a thing, each regarding the other with defiance and mistrust.  Amanda was the one to break first, throwing back her head with a crackle of laughter sounding from withered lips.

            “Yes, I see,” she hissed derisively once her cackles had died away. “I see it in _you_.  You came here out of passion.  How interesting.” She laughed raucously again, and this time the sound was openly mocking.  Rogue could only suppress a shudder as the scornful peals petered into silence and the woman lowered her snake-like head, pressing forward with a confidential air to say; “Beware your love of the darkness, pretty one.  It consumes all.  And it may just kill you, as it once did me.”

 

*


	3. Counsel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rogue is warned by Destiny of Sinister’s intentions, and decides to go back to New York.

            “So,” Clark began as he ran a wet dishcloth over the bar whilst Rogue cleaned the last of the glasses, “how was your trip?  Do anythin’ interestin’?”

            Rogue stacked the final glass away and stretched out the kinks in her joints.  It’d been a long night pulling pints whilst being assailed by loud, angry music.

            “Not really,” she replied, slipping off her apron and folding it up.  Clark hitched a grin.

            “Yeah, well, coulda told ya that.  Ain’t much t’ see in Alamagordo.  Unless you’re into all that conspiracy theory stuff.”

            “Yeah…” she answered, non-committal.  She’d only got back from the place that afternoon and had gone straight to work.  She was dead tired – tired to the bone.  She’d hardly had a moment to digest any of what she had learned from Amanda Mueller.

            “Nice hair, by the way,” her boss remarked, double-checking the till was locked.

            “Huh?”

            “That white streak.  Suits you.  Get bored, huh?”

            “Oh.  Yeah.  That.  Thought Ah’d have a change.” She yawned heavily. “Think Ah’ll call it a night, if’n you’re okay lockin’ up by yahself, sugah…”

            Clark looked at her with some concern.

            “Gimme five minutes and I can walk you home…”

            Rogue smiled faintly.  Clark was a nice guy, always looking out for his female employees.  She appreciated it.  She appreciated the fact she wasn’t just a choice piece of ass to him.

            “Nah.  Don’t worry ‘bout it, sugah.  You know me.  Ah can take care of mahself.”

            “That’s what I’m afraid of,” the older man replied, though there was a grin on his face.  The last time anyone had tried to cop a grope with her, they’d ended up almost being defenestrated. “All right, Anna.  You get on home.  Just gimme a call if you get into any trouble.”

            “Will do,” she replied with a smile, and left.

 

            Her one-room apartment was only a couple of blocks down.  The journey there always involved walking past a group of meatheads on the street corner.  Apart from the occasional wolf whistle, they knew by now to leave her alone.  More than one of them had had a taste of her knuckleduster.  That was the rules of the street.  Hold your own corner and you gain respect.  Fight back and if you win they’ll leave you alone.

            The apartment block was probably the shittiest in town, but she didn’t much care.  She climbed the stairs to the fifth floor and heard the man across the hall shouting at his wife, the little old lady next door listening to the TV on full-blast again.  She had probably fallen asleep in her armchair.  It was what she always did.

            Rogue entered into her little room, drew the blinds against neon lights and collapsed onto the bed.  She closed her eyes and breathed in deep.  For the first time she let it all sink in.  The truth, shifting to the surface as if after untold years.

            On the journey back here, to Roswell, she’d horded everything Amanda had told her, shut it all up in a little box in the corner of her mind, refused to think about it.  She’d needed to get through today, get through work and talking to co-workers and serving patrons.  But now she was alone, and now she had to _deal_.  So she went through it all methodically.  She dissected the fact that she had been a subject of the Black Womb project, that her parents had given her away to Sinister and Amanda Mueller at birth.  From what she had read in the Black Womb files, she wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in that respect.  The project had ordered in infants from all corners of the country to participate in their ‘research’.  A referral from an obstetrician was all it had taken.

            And in a way, it answered many questions.  It explained away all the years she’d spent wondering why her parents had felt like strangers to her, why they had never shown her any love or affection, why they had even been afraid of her.  It was because they had always _known_ she was a mutant, long before her powers had even manifested.  What the Black Womb scientists had told them about her, she didn’t know.  But it was enough for them to view their own daughter with suspicion and fear.  It was enough for them to fail to bond with her.

            And then there was Remy.

            Rogue sighed on a sudden pang.

            She had somehow thought that the months of separation would dull her feelings for him, but they had only served to make them sharper, deeper, now more so than ever.  She couldn’t begin to imagine how he had felt hearing everything Amanda Mueller had had to say to him, and it made her heart ache.  At least she had had parents.  At least they had loved her enough to take her back.  Remy had been born – _made_ – to be a test subject.  An experiment.  Never mind that he had been intended to be Essex’s greatest.  Somehow, that made it worse.  His purpose, his life had been calculated beforehand in the most cold-blooded and callous way possible.

            She drew in a shaky breath and rolled over onto her side, pressing her face into the pillow.

            She longed to hold him.  Longed for him to be beside her.  Longed for his warmth.  More than anything she wanted to comfort him, to tell him it was okay, that it didn’t change how she felt about him.  That if anything it made her love him all the more.

            He’d never liked it, never liked hearing her tell him she loved him, but she’d say it to him now.  The keenness of her emotions cut into her like a knife.  It hurt.  It hurt to want him like this and for him to be so far.  It hurt to be this in love with someone when you couldn’t even reach out and touch them, couldn’t even pick up the phone and call them.

            So she tied it all up again.  Wrapped it into a hard little bundle and hid it deep down inside her.  She whispered his name just once, before closing her eyes and falling asleep.

 

*

 

            _She’s here again._

_Bathed in the cold dimness, the world whirling lazily about her._

_She tries to stop it from moving.  She can’t.  She wants to feel scared, betrayed, hard done by.  But everything is a delicious blur, and she doesn’t understand why._

_She hears voices above her.  His voice – and Essex’s.  She tries to move but when she does she realises she’s strapped down, she can’t._

_She opens her eyes a crack._

_And his eyes are looking down into hers, blazing red and malevolent_

_Too late, he knows she’s awake_

_And Remy stands there impassive_

_Doing nothing as Essex’s needle punctures her arm_

_And the drug courses through her veins and_

            Silence.

            Rogue sat bolt upright under the shadow of the cedar tree, a crystalline white sky arching protectively over her, its reflection sparkling in the clear blue lake just a little way down the slope.

            At the realisation of where she was, Rogue gasped for breath and gathered her wits.

            It had been a dream.  Another one of Irene’s prophetic dreams.  And now she’d woken up in her own mind.  In the sanctuary she had built for herself, made in the image of the grounds of the Xavier Institute.  She glanced to her right.  There, atop the hill, nestled upon its crest, stood the mansion itself, an anchor in her mind.  Even the sight of it was enough to ease the racing of her heartbeat and the jangling of her nerves.

            It was at that moment she heard the light tread of footsteps behind her, and she swivelled slightly, seeing – little to her surprise – that it was the shade of Irene standing behind her, mahogany cane in hand, waiting patiently.

            Rogue stood and faced her.  It was clear to her now why she was here and not awake in her own bed.

            “Irene,” she muttered begrudgingly. “Shoulda known.  Now it makes sense why Ah’ve been dragged inside mah own head.”

            “You’re still angry with me,” the little old lady noted calmly, deprecatingly, and Rogue felt her gall rise at the woman’s insouciance.

            “Ah don’t much care for bein’ dragged in here at your beck and call,” she ground out angrily. “This is _mah_ mind after all, not yours!”

            “Yes,” the shade of Irene agreed shortly, turning aside and walking towards the lake. “But there is no other way, Rogue, to communicate with you.  I am sorry for the way in which it must be done; it _must_ be done, nevertheless.”

            Rogue followed her down to the water’s edge, her indignation still unappeased.

            “And that ain’t the least of it, Irene!” she raged. “Can’t yah stop givin’ me these darn dreams?  Why are you showin’ them to me anyway?  Ah thought Ah wasn’t supposed to know the future…”

            Irene stopped on the banks of the lake and sighed heavily, as though Rogue’s question was one she had answered many, many times before in the course of her life.

            “These are but _possible_ futures you are seeing, Rogue.  Snapshots of various threads in time.  And I show you everything you _need_ to see, in order to guide the choices you may make.”

            “And isn’t that forbidden?” Rogue demanded, vexed, and Irene passed her a sidelong smile.

            “ _Nothing_ is forbidden, Rogue.  _Everything_ is permitted.  If it is forbidden, it is not _possible_.  Do you see that?  No choice is forbidden to you, my child.  And so I must guide you to make the _right_ choice, even if, at the very end, you choose another path.  And that is your right.  I am not here to _make_ you do anything.” She looked back to the water, the smile still playing across her thin lips. “Besides, I thought you might _want_ to speak to me, considering you have finally discovered what it is you set out here to find out.”

            Rogue looked away, biting her lip, her anger quelled for the moment.  Irene was right.  She had too many questions.

            “Ah’m a subject of the Black Womb project,” she stated in a hard voice.  Irene’s expression was level, imparting nothing.

            “Yes.”

            Rogue turned back to her, eyes blazing.

            “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

            “What use would it have been to you, had you known?” Irene answered evenly.

            “Well obviously it’s of use to me _now_ ,” Rogue burst out, her irritation rising again. “Or maybe to _you_!”

            Irene’s countenance showed an infinite patience that could not be tried.

            “It serves to tell you, my dear, that Remy LeBeau is not the only one that is tied to Nathaniel Essex.”

            Rogue clamped her mouth shut at that.  Her gut lurched with sudden sadness mingled with longing.

            “Remy…” she whispered, and Irene nodded.

            “Yes.  You were both children of the Black Womb.  But that is nothing in itself.  There are many who were.”

            “Not like Remy though,” Rogue murmured, and again Irene nodded.

            “No.  He was – _is_ – one of a kind.  Essex’s wish was for him to be his weapon.  It is a good thing,” and Irene smiled to herself, “that he was taken away from Essex at the earliest opportunity.”

            Rogue glanced at the shade of her foster mother curiously.

            “How do you know all this?” she queried; Irene sighed.

            “I worked on the Black Womb project.  As an archivist.  I saw all the subjects as they passed through.  I saw the one they now call Gambit.  I saw _you_.” She smiled at Rogue. “I did not like what Essex was planning.  I had seen the future, and it wasn’t to my liking.  So I decided to take you away from him.  When Amanda Mueller destroyed the test facility out of her hatred of Essex, I took you in secret and returned you to your parents.  It was my intention,” she continued flatly, “to have the boy removed from Essex’s clutches as well.  Raven and I had considered raising him ourselves, but such a thing would have proved to be… difficult.  There were other matters the two of us had to attend to, and the boy had to be brought up in a certain way for our plans to be of any use.  Raven… _left_ him in the facility even as it fell.  And that was the end of that.”

            “But somehow he ended up with the Thieves Guild,” Rogue finished quietly, and Irene’s smile was now wide.

            “Yes.  Fate has a funny way of making things happen exactly as you wish them to.”

            They fell into silence.  When Rogue next spoke her voice was soft, quizzical.

            “There’s still one thing you haven’t explained to me,” she began. “And that’s _why me_?  Why did you take _me_ out of the project?  What did Sinister have planned for me?”

            And Irene’s soft blue eyes went suddenly sad.

            “A kind of death, my dear,” she replied in a voice laced with sorrow. “You have seen it yourself.”

            Rogue made no response.  Her memory was cast back to another prophetic dream Destiny had sent her many months ago.  She touched her breast instinctively.  In her dream a knife had been wedged in it.

            “You mean…Sinister wants to _kill_ me…” she murmured; but Irene shook her head emphatically.

            “No.  He doesn’t _want_ to kill you.  But he _will_ , if it comes to it.  And what he decides to do rests with you.  Do you not understand, my child,” she turned to Rogue fully, her eyes beseeching, “that your choices, your decisions, drive so very many things?  The balance of Fate itself hinges upon them.  _This_ is why I have brought you here, why I have shown you what I have, why I have impelled you to seek out Amanda Mueller.  Because all these things are to help you make the _right decision_.  And I cannot _force_ you to make it.  It cannot be _my_ choice whether you live or you die.  It _must_ be yours.”

            She looked aside again, back to the lake, real anguish in her features.

            “If I were to show you all I have seen,” she continued as though struggling with a conflict of deep inner emotion, “there would be no choice for you to make.  The threads of Fate would drive you to madness, and all would be lost.  It is impossible for me to risk such a thing.”

            There was such distress on her face that Rogue was almost entirely placated.

            “If what you say is true,” she reasoned slowly, “then who can help me?  Can’t you at least tell me who it is Ah can trust to be there if the worst comes to the worst with Sinister?”

            And Irene gave her that look again, a glance oddly askance.

            “Do you pretend not to know, Rogue?” she retorted with such weight to her words that Rogue knew instinctively what she meant.

            “Remy?” she voiced aloud, her brow furrowing in consternation. “But… Ah think he’s _workin’_ for Sinister right now…”

            “He knows,” Irene interjected quietly. “He knows that you, too, are a child of Essex’s.  In a way, it is _that_ knowledge that guides him, that leads him back to Essex.  He fears it.  He fears what it means you might _be_.” She paused, looked fully at Rogue once more.  “You ask for proof that you may trust him.  There is no real proof I can give you, Rogue.  But you love him.  Does not _that_ fact alone entail implicit trust in him?”

            Rogue frowned at her.

            “You once told me that Ah was in even greater danger _because_ Ah loved him…”

            “Did I?” Irene replied innocently. “Yes, perhaps I did.  But is danger not relative?  And is love not _always_ dangerous?” She laughed softly at the riddle, and Rogue stared at her, wondering yet again if her foster mother wasn’t someone to be trusted herself. “Whatever the case,” Irene continued soberly after a moment, “it is your decision.  Remy LeBeau is a powerful ally to have – his closeness to Essex makes him doubly so.  He has his own agenda, to be sure; but you are forgetting one very important factor in the equation that points very much in his favour.”

            “And what’s that?” Rogue asked on a murmur, and Irene glanced at her with great surprise.

            “Why, my dear, it is obvious – that he loves you too.”

 

*


	4. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue heads back to New York, where she takes Destiny’s advice and contacts Gambit.

            Spots of rain were gathering on the ground like mis-matched polka dots.

            Logan checked his watch again and then his texts.  He’d been waiting the better part of an hour and narrowly avoided a Sentinel patrol ten minutes before.

            It was a relief when finally the familiar figure of Rogue came into view, and he stood to attention; she noticed him as he did so, and with a smile on her face, quickened her pace.

            “Logan,” she greeted him with obvious joy when they finally stood before each other, drawing him into a spontaneous hug. “Sorry Ah’m late,” she added, stepping away. “Ran into trouble at the toll plaza.”

            He was alarmed to hear it.

            “You okay?” he asked breathlessly.

            “Ah’m fine,” she assured him. “Shame the same can’t be said for some other poor mutant.  He got caught at the state line.  Guy was so desperate to leave he wouldn’t take no for an answer.  You can guess what happened next.” She frowned. “The place went nuts.”

            Logan nodded grimly.  It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

            “Just as long as you’re okay, stripes…”

            He looked her up and down.  She looked okay – better than okay.  The time out appeared to have done her good.  Her skin was still flushed with the slightest trace of a tan; she looked revitalised somehow.

            “Still livin’ outta that bag?” he asked her, cocking a look at the carryall slung over her shoulder.  She shrugged.

            “Don’t need much else, sugah.” She looked around with interest. “So, still underground, are we?  This old subway station’s seen better days…”

            “Don’t knock it,” Logan replied gruffly, leading her in through a maintenance door – the main entrances had been blocked up years ago. “It’s about the most secure fuckin’ place I’ve been in.  Was a shelter back during the war.  For the statics, of course.  They figured they could hide here from our superpowers.  Though I’m thinkin’ most of ‘em ended up here to hide from the Sentinels in the end.”

            The maintenance door actually opened up into an elevator.  Logan punched in a few keys, and the lift lurched downward.

            “Nice,” Rogue remarked appreciatively.

            “Yeah.” Logan couldn’t quite hide the pride from his voice. “Forge helped us to get through security.  Then he set it back up again.  The guy’s a fuckin’ genius.  But you don’t need me to tell you that.”

            She glanced at him curiously.

            “Yah keepin’ in contact with the Brotherhood?”

            “Not really.” Logan shrugged. “Kinda.  When it suits the both of us.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “We asked Forge to come stay with us, but he said no.  Guess he’s made a home with your lot now.  Fair enough.”

            “They ain’t _my lot_ ,” Rouge murmured to the wall, and Logan frowned.

            “Figure of speech, stripes.  You know the Brotherhood more than anyone.  For what it’s worth.”

            “Yeah.”

            She was quiet as the elevator juddered to a halt and the doors slid open, and he guessed it wasn’t exactly easy for her to contemplate being in contact with her old team-mates again.  He got it.  He changed the subject quickly as he led her out behind him.

            “So.  You managed to figure out why the Cajun went AWOL?”

            There was a long silence behind him, and he guessed he’d hit another raw nerve; but it was too late to take the question back now.

            “Remy?” Her tone told him she was going for calm control but wasn’t quite able to manage it. “The only thing Ah really learned is that he’s probably workin’ for Sinister right now.”

            Well he couldn’t say it surprised him.

            “Coulda told ya that before ya left,” he snorted.  She was so quiet again that he knew exactly what her feelings were on the matter. “Somethin’ tells me you still ain’t given up on him though,” he noted wryly.

            “Ah don’t believe workin’ for Essex was really a choice he wanted to _make_ , Logan,” she returned in a low voice, and he grimaced.

            “You can believe that if you wanna, kid.  But there’s one thing I know for sure.  He cares about you; and that’s sayin’ somethin’, even if I don’t wanna be the one who says it.”

            She made no response as they stepped out of the elevator, and he decided to leave it at that.

            The bunker had long been abandoned before Logan and the others had made it their new home.  Dirt and damp was still a problem, though they’d patched things up as best they could.  Several months, and it was finally starting to feel like a real home.  Jubilee had done a good job of adding a splash of colour to the place – including some other, dubious style statements.  Logan had let it pass mainly because anything was an improvement on the way it had looked before.

            They stopped outside what was now the Rec Room and looked in.  Everett was sitting watching TV; Betsy was in a corner, polishing a finely wrought katana.  The usual greetings were exchanged; the two both looked glad to see her.

            “Nice trip?” Everett asked her from the couch. “I sure could use a vacation.” He gave Logan a meaningful glance which the older man pretended not to notice.

            “Ah dunno if it was fun, sugah,” Rogue replied humorously. “But it was… instructive.  And Ah actually have some cash on me right now.”

            “I wouldn’t let Jubilee hear that,” Betsy commented sardonically. “The girl has decided she likes interior design and she has very expensive tastes.”

            “Yeah,” Ev rolled his eyes. “It’s a fuckin’ nightmare.”

            Logan saw a small grin light Rogue’s face and knew what she was thinking.  It was good to be back.

            “Ah’ll keep that in mind,” she replied comically, and they moved off again.

            “Gotcha a new room set up,” Logan informed her as they walked down a colourful corridor with hot pink walls and a neon green ceiling. “Well – Jubilee set it up anyway when we got your call.  Emma tried to restrain her, but, well… Don’t blame me if it gives you a headache.”

            Rogue laughed.

            “Ah’m pretty much used to sleepin’ anywhere, as long as it ain’t a sewer, hon.”

            “Yah say that now…” he muttered, turning a corner.

            “Logan?” she said, after a moment.

            “Yups?”

            “Ah’m sorry about what happened.  Y’know, with Rachel and the others.  Ah wish… Ah wish Ah’d been there t’ help you guys out.”

            He stopped and turned to her, his expression darkening.  He’d managed to keep her up to speed via texts and emails during the whole debacle, glad for once that she had taken the option of following the Cajun’s scent rather than his own.

            “No,” he answered roughly. “You don’t.  It’s a good thing you _weren’t_ there, Rogue.  Anythin’ coulda happened to yah.”

            Her face was sombre.

            “Yah said Rachel disappeared…”

            He nodded.

            “Into the Timestream is what Kate said.”

            “So Kate wasn’t successful?  She didn’t manage to stop Senator Kelly from bein’ murdered?”

            “Heh.” Logan’s tone was full of irony. “She prevented his death all right.  But it didn’t change a damn thing.  Not _here_ anyway.”

            Rogue looked away, her mouth twisting bitterly. “It just made a new timeline…”

            “Right.” He nodded. “And that ain’t the only thing.  The person who murdered Senator Kelly in the first place… It was your foster mother.”

            She glanced at him sharply.

            “Raven?”

            “No,” and the word was even graver. “Irene.”

            That knocked her for six.  For a full minute she was unable to speak.

            “ _Irene?_ ” she managed to finally get out in disbelief.

            “Yeah.  Interestin’, huh.  Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it.  I mean, if she started this whole fucked up timeline in the first place, what the hell is she hoping to gain from it?  What’s she playin’ for?”

            Rogue opened her mouth to reply, but no response came.  He almost felt sorry for her.

            “Ah can’t believe it,” she spoke hoarsely. “It ain’t _possible_.”

            “Sorry, stripes.” He turned, leading her away again. “I’m afraid it’s the truth.  You could always ask your mom what the hell she was thinkin’.  Then again, I don’t reckon you’ll get a straight answer outta her.  For what everythin’s worth,” he added, stopping in front of the door to her new room and pausing to glance at her, “you were right about Tanya.  Damn bitch betrayed us.”

            The slant to Rogue’s mouth told him that the news disturbed her on more than one level.

            “She wasn’t a _bad_ person, Logan…” she murmured, and he laughed coldly.

            “Ha!  No.  She was just fuckin’ insane.  I don’t know what the hell Trask did to her to screw her up so bad, but whatever it was the girl was certifiably unhinged.  Anyway,” he continued, opening to the door to her room, “she’s gone now.  Split after the shit that went down at the internment camp.  No one’s heard a peep outta her.  Wise girl.  If anyone did she’d probably be long dead.”

            “And Kate?”

            “Kate?” He frowned momentarily. “I offered her a place t’ stay with us.  She didn’t take me up on it.  Needed her own space.” He shrugged, but couldn’t quite hide an edge of regret. “Her life, her choice.  Wasn’t about to go messin’ with it.”

            He opened the door fully onto the room Jubilee had prepared for Rogue.  It was the first time he’d looked in on it since handing it over to the girl and he was almost surprised to see that it wasn’t as much of a travesty as he’d been expecting.  The greens had been tempered with creams and neutrals, and he sensed that Emma had had more of a hand in the decorating than she’d at first let on.  The way Rogue was smiling as she stepped inside told him that she was as pleasantly surprised as he was.

            “Thought you said I’d be gettin’ a headache in here,” she joked and Logan let out a breath of relief.

            “Looks like the kid has more taste than I thought,” he muttered. “Although it probably has more to do with Emma’s persuasion than anything else.”

            “It’s perfect,” Rogue enthused, giving him another impromptu hug – and he knew she really _was_ glad to be back. “Thanks, Logan.”

 

*

 

            A week slipped past.

            Rogue had enough on her plate reacclimating to the new surroundings and mulling over what she was going to do next.

            She’d come back mainly because Irene had prompted her to do so.  The thing was, she was even less sure than before that Irene was to be trusted.  She had no reason to believe that Logan or Kate or any of the others had lied to her about Irene having been the one to kill Senator Kelly and thus instigate the whole mutant-static war.  But on the other hand, it just didn’t seem _right_.  Why on earth would Irene have done such a thing if her whole purpose in life was to protect mutantkind?

            Of course, there was no way of telling whether that actually _was_ Irene’s purpose, and that being the case, there was no real reason to believe that any advice Irene gave her was actually useful, or – more to the point – to be trusted.

            Rogue sat on the edge of her bed, cell phone in hand, her teeth chewing nervously on her lower lip.

            Irene had told her that her next step was to call Remy, to ask for his help.  And the truth of the matter was that even if Irene’s guidance was nothing more than a trap, Rogue was still considering going ahead with what she had been told.  She kept telling herself it didn’t have a thing to do with Irene, that it had more to do with the fact that she needed to talk to him about everything she had learned, everything that had passed between her and Amanda Mueller in Alamogordo.  She needed to _be_ there for him.

            And there was something else too, though she hardly liked to admit it.

            If she had to be frank about the whole thing she’d call him just for the plain fact that she _wanted_ him.  Ten months had gone by without so much as hearing his voice, and some nights the thought of being apart from him another day was enough to drive her to insanity.

            She would’ve called him even if it was only for an hour or so of passionate sex.

            Rogue caught her breath and rubbed her face tiredly.  She’d been contemplating this moment for a while now – almost to the point of obsession – analysing every pro and con that came with contacting him again.  And it had always ended in her putting it off.  It wasn’t because she was _afraid_ exactly.  It was more because she wasn’t sure what needed to be said or how to approach a subject that wasn’t exactly the easiest to discuss.  The fact was, anything other than face to face was not going to cut it.

            She flicked open her messenger and ran off a text.  It was… hard.  Knowing what balance to keep, knowing how he’d want this to _be_.  Months had passed since they’d last been in contact.  And what she saw when she reread their previous exchanges (as she sometimes did when she was alone) were discourses full of need and desire and tenderness and love and everything she knew he wouldn’t want now.  So, she kept it neutral.  She kept it short.  She kept it brief.

            _Remy, need 2 talk.  Black womb._

            She stared at the screen.

            There were a lot of ways she wanted to sign off, but even her name seemed superfluous.  This had to be impersonal.  So, after a long moment of anxious reflection, she sent off the text just as it was, hoping that it would be enough to elicit a reply.

 

            Hours passed without a response.

            Rogue spent the better part of the evening clutching her phone before venturing over to the kitchen, her churning stomach protesting that she did in fact need some sustenance other than adrenaline.

            Jubilee was already at the long, metal trestle table, playing a game on her tablet over a bowl of fries and mayonnaise.

            “Damn!” she hissed at the screen, an obvious sign that it was game over.

            “How do you afford all this shit?” Rogue asked her curiously.  Jubilee was rarely without some gadget or other.  The girl didn’t even bother looking up from her game.

            “By turning tricks.  Whaddaya think?”

            “That ain’t funny, Jubes,” Rogue said with a frown, and the girl pulled a face.

            “I got it from the mall back in Chicago,” she explained impatiently. “Where else could I have gotten it?”

            “So you stole it,” Rogue stated, going through the cupboards, trying to find something quick and easy to cook up.

            “Yeah.  So?  It was in a crate full of shit no one was gonna look in.  If I hadn’t taken it, some other prick would have.” She glanced over at Rogue who was now making something of a commotion banging doors and muttering irritably to herself. “You can have the rest of my fries, if you want,” the younger woman offered, starting up another game on her tablet. “I ate two bowls already.”

            Rogue gave up and sank into a chair opposite Jubilee, who passed the fries over willingly.

            “Jubes, you’re a lifesaver,” Rogue sighed, stuffing a few fries into her mouth.  The girl waved her hand.

            “Yeah, I know.  It’s why I’m an X-Man, dude.”

            They fell into silence, Rogue eating hungrily, Jubilee engrossed in her game.

            “So why’d Logan choose this place?” Rogue asked at last.

            “Beats me,” Jubilee shrugged. “’Cos he likes being underground, I guess.  The man has a thing about Cold War bunkers and shit.  He ain’t at home unless he can pretend there’s nukes landing overhead.  It’s in his blood.”

            Rogue gave a non-committal grunt.  She knew Logan took his duties seriously, and to him protecting his friends and fellow mutants was the most important duty of all.  Jubilee could make light of that fact, but they both knew the truth – that they owed more than they cared to admit to the man’s dogged resourcefulness.

            It was as Rogue was mulling all this over that the phone pinged by her elbow, and she snatched it up quickly, her heart beating fast, her stomach churning ominously.

            It was _him_.

            All he’d sent her was a set of coordinates and a time – one hour from now.

            She scraped her chair back and got up.  Jubilee looked at her curiously.

            “Where you goin’?”

            “Out,” Rogue replied, grabbing her jacket from behind her chair.

            “Must be some mega hot date,” Jubilee remarked slyly, as Rogue slipped another fry or two into her mouth whilst simultaneously shrugging the jacket on one-handed. “Was that Gambit?”

            “It ain’t what you’re thinkin’,” Rogue insisted, swallowing down her mouthful of fries. “Ah just need t’ tell him somethin’.”

            “Uh-huh?” Jubilee looked sceptical. “You just keep tellin’ yourself that, girl.  I know the signs.  You are still _so_ hot for him.”

            “Shut up,” Rogue muttered, punching the coordinates into her sat nav app. “If Ah ain’t back by tomorrow mornin’…”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Jubilee waved a hand at her, “don’t wait up.  You guys have fun now.”

            “Shut up,” Rogue repeated, giving up on anymore denials or explanations and hurrying out the door.

 

*


	5. Fence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gambit makes his return, and Rogue meets up with him (for more than one reason), even though she still doesn’t fully trust him - perhaps with reason.

            It was the waterfront.

            Rogue leaned over the rails and looked down.  The water was dark as ink, sparkling with the lights of the city.  Her form was nothing more than a blot, a stain on the water.  Black.  Reminding her of the desiccated face of Amanda Mueller.  She frowned and lifted her face to the breeze, letting it play with her hair.  Closing her eyes did not dispel the images – her mind made them clearer, more visceral.  She couldn’t un-see what she had seen, despite the hours spent purging her mind.  She was no Xavier, no Jean Grey.  She couldn’t wash away memories, however sorely she may have been tempted.

            “ _Chere_.”

            Always the same.  No greetings, no idle pleasantries.  Just _chere_.  She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder at him.

            He stood in the light of the streetlamp, hands in pockets, the collar of his trench coat turned up against the chill.  She held her breath at the sight of him.  Such beauty born out of such ugliness.  Seeing him this close again after so long, knowing what she knew about him now – it didn’t change how she felt about him, not for a minute.

            “Remy,” she greeted him in kind. “Long time no see.”

            He walked out of the light, stepping up to the railings beside her.  Together they looked out onto the river, side by side, not needing any words; or perhaps, not quite sure of what they wanted to say to one another.

            “Got your message,” he spoke at last, still looking down into the restless waters of the Hudson.  He leant his elbows against the railing and she saw a playing card in his hand; he flipped it between his fingers absently, that same old nervous tic she knew so well. “Was surprised to hear from you, _chere_.  After all dis time…”

            “Ah needed to talk,” she broke in softly. “Ah know about the risks… Yah don’t need to tell me.  But this… it had to be in person.”

            “What is it?” he asked her.  There was no anger in his voice, nor was there any curiosity.  Whatever his true feelings, he was masking them again.  It was impossible for her to tell just how much of this was just business to him.

            “Ah followed your trail,” she confessed, wondering if _this_ would rile him, even if nothing else did. “To Alamogordo.  Ah met _her_ there.  Amanda Mueller.”

            There was no surprise on his face.  No chagrin.  His eyes remained on the waters down below; but his mouth tightened.

            “And what led you dere?” he asked her quietly.

            “You did.  Destiny too.” She shivered, tucked a loose lock of white hair behind her ear. “Ah’d been havin’ dreams about the Black Womb facility for months.  Took me a while to figure out what it was though…”

            He frowned.

            “Destiny?” he spoke; and then his brow cleared. “Oh.  Yeah.  I almost forgot.  You absorbed her.” The card paused between his fingers. “She been givin’ you trouble, _chere_?”

            She nodded.

            “Sometimes.  Sometimes she makes me see things, things that could happen in the future.  Usually they don’t make a whole lotta sense.  But when Ah ask _you_ about it…” she trailed off, realising that he probably wouldn’t like what she had intended to say next.

            “You mean you went and talked to the ‘me’ in your head?  The one you stole?” he questioned with a hint of bitterness, still not looking at her.

            “Ah had t’ know the truth,” she said. “Ah’m sorry you don’t like it, but trust’s a two-way street, sugah.  Ah’m fairly sure you’ve hidden more than a few truths from me too.” She saw the evenness of his countenance and continued in a soft voice, “Why didn’t you tell me, Remy?  That you knew Ah was a part of the Black Womb project too?”

            His smile was wry, resigned.

            “So dat was what she told you, huh?” He didn’t look half as sheepish about it as she’d imagined. “Truth is, Rogue,” he continued matter-of-factly, “I didn’t know how t’ tell you.  You’d been hurt enough already, been put through enough shit to be told dat de better part of your life’s been a coldly calculated lie.”

            “Ah dunno.” She gave a humourless laugh. “Livin’ with Irene and Mystique for half your life, you kinda get used to it.” She turned to him. “How ‘bout you, Remy?  How do you deal with it?”

            “By bein’ who I am, _chere,_ ” he answered simply, looking down at the card that was now standing, still and upright, between his fingers.  It was an Ace of Spades. “Not’ing else makes any sense.” He stood up straight and flipped the card back into the pouch at his belt, finally turning to her as he did so. “How much did she tell you?” he asked her curiously. “De Black Womb, I mean?”

            “Everythin’,” she answered, suppressing a shudder when she heard him call her _that_ name. “That you were born there, at the facility.  That you were Essex’s crowning achievement, that your powers were Omega level but that you couldn’t control them, because the Thieves Guild could never teach you to.” She glanced over at him earnestly. “He helped you, didn’t he?  Took out a part of your brain, lowered your power levels, brought them down to something you could manage.  That was the leverage he held on you for all these years, wasn’t it.  He still has that piece of you, he still won’t give it back.  He _still_ has a hold over you.” He said nothing and she continued desperately: “Why didn’t you tell me, Remy?  Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

            All through her speech he’d stared at her, measuring every word, every nuance; but on her final question he looked aside, back to the water, his brow furrowed.

            “Tellin’ de truth ain’t easy, _chere_ ,” he replied quietly. “Especially when it comes t’ myself.” He looked across at her again. “Is dat all y’came t’ tell me, Rogue?”

            She bit her lip and looked back to the river.  Their reflections were ghostly and insubstantial in the water.

            “Irene told me that her and Raven planned to take you outta there just like they did with me.  They wanted to raise you, keep you safe.  Irene knew how important you would be.  But Amanda went crazy, started tearin’ up the facility… By that time Sinister already had you; they managed to get me outta there and back to Caldecott, but you…”

            “But I ended up wit’ de Thieves Guild, and screwed up their grand plan for de future.” He laughed with just a strain of irony. “I’m glad.”

            “Are yah?” she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

            “ _Oui_.  Can you imagine what kinda person I woulda turned out to be if Irene and Mystique had raised me?  Not to mention if _we’d_ been raised together?  As brother and sister?” His grin widened. “Always thought de X-Men were kinda incestuous, but dis woulda given de concept a whole new meanin’…”

            “Don’t joke about it,” she remonstrated with him. “Maybe Ah wouldn’t have liked your sorry ass so much if you _weren’t_ brought up by the Thieves Guild.”

            “So ‘like’ is what you call it, huh?” He looked amused. “But maybe you right, _p’tit_.  Whatever shit de Guilds threw at me, dey were still one helluva family.  Not sure Irene and Mystique woulda been…  Tryin’ to fit me into dis crazy future of theirs…”

            “ _Who_ brought you up ain’t the point, Remy,” she told him soberly. “The point is where you ended up.  Where you are now, and where you’ll be in the future.” She looked down at her hands, the breeze cooling the sudden heat on her cheeks. “Y’know what Ah think?  Ah think it was _always_ Irene’s intention that we be pushed together.  She tried to make it happen, from the very moment we were both born… but we ended up on different paths.  For a little while.” She looked up at him again, into his eyes, said: “The more Ah think about it, the more Ah believe that it was those different paths that brought us together… Maybe how Irene wanted to play things wasn’t the way things were _supposed_ to be… Maybe Fate worked against her.”

            “You’re assumin’ dat dis Fate crock is for real, _chere_ ,” he returned seriously.  The breeze had blown that white lock of hair into her face again and he reached out absently, tucking it back behind her ear in a gesture that he’d performed so often before.  At his touch she stilled for a moment, before shaking her head gently.

            “But it _is_ real.”

            “How do you _know_?” he quizzed her.

            “Because Ah have her powers now, Remy, don’t I.  Because Ah can see too.”

            He looked at her, a frown creasing his face, his hand still at her ear.

            “I’m not sure I like dat,” he muttered reflectively.

            “Me neither,” she confessed.

            “So tell me somet’ing, _chere_?” he queried again. “Why would Destiny want us together?  Mystique sure as hell didn’t.” And he let a grin touch his face at that.

            “Ah don’t know.  Ah don’t think Irene ever discussed it with Raven, to be honest.”

            “Hm.” He nodded absent-mindedly, as if it made sense to him. “When I was at de Brotherhood’s place, after what happened wit’ Rachel down at de Hound Pens, Irene knew I was gonna take you wit’ me.”

            Rogue was surprised at the revelation.

            “She knew?”

            “ _Oui_.  She _wanted_ me t’ take you.  She never said so, but I got de feelin’…” He paused, seemed to realise that his hand was still behind her ear.  He dropped it, slipped it back into his pocket. “I asked her once _what_ it was she was playin’ dis whole Fate t’ing for.  She said ‘for everythin’.  Dat was about as much as I got outta her.” His glance became penetrating. “Why don’t _you_ ask her?  She’s in your head after all.”

            “She don’t play nice,” she answered peremptorily, and he grimaced.

            “Like dat, huh?  Hope she don’t give you no grief, _chere_.”

            “No.  Not anymore.  Not as much as she _could_ , anyways.” She looked away, leaning back against the rails with her elbows.  The truth was, she _could_ have looked… but she was too afraid of what she might see.  She had already seen enough – enough for a lifetime.  She didn’t want anymore.

            “Looks like her plans failed though,” he spoke up sarcastically from beside her. “It’s not like we’re together anymore, is it?”

            She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

            “So _that’s_ what the past few months of silence have meant, Cajun?” She pouted sulkily. “Ah don’t _recall_ us ever havin’ broken up…”

            “Technically, I don’t remember us ever havin’ got _together_ …”

            “Oh, so the whole, ‘we take things day by day, see where it leads us’ thing… That was just somethin’ Ah dreamt up, was it?  Or was it just part of the _game_ , Remy?” And she couldn’t help the resentment from edging into her voice.

            “I meant exactly what I said.  Day by day, _chere_.  Came a day when I left.  Didn’t know you were still holdin’ out for somet’ing.”

            She looked up at him sharply, hurt, fury in her eyes.

            “The way we parted… It wasn’t exactly like we were never gonna see each other again.  Ah thought—”

            She looked away quickly, unable to finish the sentence, knowing her temper would get the better of her and that she’d end up being incoherent.  And really, what did it matter?  He was right.  It wasn’t like they _were_ together anymore.

            It sure _felt_ like something was still left undone though.

            “I’m sorry,” he spoke up after a long moment of silence. “Truth is, I didn’t have de guts to call it a day on us.”

            She let out an angry, pent-up breath.

            “Me neither,” she admitted softly.  Calm fell; she dared to look him.

            “Did yah _want_ to?”

            “ _Non_ ,” he answered honestly.

            “Neither did Ah.”

            They gazed at one another, silent, as the implications of their words sank in.  Presently he reached out, drew an arm around her shoulder and said: “C’mon.  Let’s walk a bit.”

            They walked down the pier together, his arm still about her, the closest they had been to one another for longer than she cared to mention.

            “Be honest wit’ me, Rogue,” he spoke once they had walked a few yards together. “You ain’t told me de whole story, have you.  Destiny’s been givin’ you more trouble den you’ve been lettin’ on.”

            She looked up at him with a level gaze, and he smiled wryly at her.

            “Come now, Rogue.  How long were we together?  Dere some t’ings you can’t hide from me.” He looked away and added softly: “Just like dere’re some t’ings I can’t hide from you.”

            “Remy…”

            “ _Non_ ,” and his voice was stern, “no ‘Remy’.  Not in dat voice you do so well, _chere_.  Be honest wit’ me.  You’ve seen t’ings, haven’t you.  In your dreams.  You seen de future, and you’re here because _I’m_ in those dreams, aren’t you.”

            She couldn’t lie.  Not to him.

            “Yes.”

            “And whatever work Irene and Raven were doin’… You want to carry it on, don’t you.  You want t’ finish what dey started, am I right?”

            She halted in her tracks and he stopped too, turning to face her, his arm dropping from her shoulder.  She opened her mouth to get words out, only to find herself completely tongue-tied.

            “Come on, Rogue,” he said impatiently. “You take me for a fool?  You come here, talkin’ about Destiny and her prophecies… about de past she tried to make for us, about de Black Womb project.  I ain’t stupid.  I saw a connection once too.  Me and Sinny, and you and Destiny and Mystique… and in de middle, de Black Womb.  But you know what, _chere_?  _Thousands_ of mutants were subjects on de Black Womb project.  We weren’t de only ones.”

            “The others were mistakes,” she told him with certainty.

            “Now you soundin’ like Sinny.” His expression was dark. “You buyin’ into _his_ crap too?”

            “We serve a purpose, Remy.  After everything that’s happened, you can’t deny it.” He shook his head vigorously, disdainfully, and she continued earnestly: “Honesty’s like trust, Remy – it’s a two-way street too.  And Ah know you well enough to know that the fact that Essex has a piece of your brain ain’t the _real_ reason you’re still taggin’ along with him.  What you _really_ want to know is _why he made you._ And why he’s still so darn interested in you, even after all these years and all the grief you’ve given him.”

            That shut his mouth – she had to consciously refrain from letting the satisfaction show on her face.

            “All right,” he spoke at last, belligerently. “You’re right.  Looks like we know each other too well, _chere_.”

            _Because we were made for each other_ , she wanted to say, but she bit back on the words, fought against just how much she ached to say them.

            “So whaddaya want from me?” he asked, spreading his hands out. “Looks like Gambit’s everyone’s damn pawn, so what de fuck does it matter?”

            “Ah need you to help me,” she returned as calmly as she could, ignoring his little boy tantrum.

            “Of course you do,” he snorted.

            “Remy, _please_ …”

            “Y’know, Rogue,” he began, coming in close and jabbing his finger in her chest, “I spent a lifetime ‘helpin’ out’ others.  First de Guilds, den Essex, and den Destiny t’inks she can screw wit’ my life.  But de _last_ person I expected dis from was _you_.  _You_ were de one who was supposed to help me escape from all dat shit.”

            She looked down at the finger that was still poking her chest, reached out calmly and pushed it away.

            “Ah’m _the one reason_ why you _can’t_ escape it, sugah.”

            “ _Really_?” A sneer crossed his face. “You know somet’ing?  You’re right.  So maybe dat’s why I should walk away right now and pretend I never met you in de first place.”

            He swung round with a swish of his coat and stomped off, and she half expected him to stop and turn back, but he didn’t; after a few brief moments he rounded the corner of the pier and was out of sight.

            Silence fell again, the charged atmosphere of his presence dissipating into thin air.  Rogue drew out a long breath, trying desperately to relax.  _Relax?  That’ll be the day, girl_.  Because the truth was her heart was running away with her and her stomach was in knots since she’d seen him again.  Ten long months… no, more… and she realised now how much they had killed her.  Waiting for something she wasn’t going to get back.  Meeting him here, tonight, had been a cruel and unusual form of torture.

            She turned away and walked back to the railing, smiled sardonically at her own reflection.

            _Way to go, Rogue.  You just went and alienated the one person you needed in all this.  The one person you could trust_.

            So now what?  Rachel was gone, and she wasn’t entirely sure that Raven and Irene weren’t at cross purposes with her.  There was Logan… But Logan believed in all this even less than Remy did, and besides, he didn’t have what she needed.  Still, she _did_ trust him… He was the only one she trusted besides Remy.  And she needed an ally.

            She sighed and rubbed her face with her palms.  For the first time she began to realise the grinding _slog_ that came with Irene’s powers.  That need, that drive to _make things right_ – it was all-consuming.  Lonely.  She understood now why Destiny had clung so hard to Mystique.  It was to have some shield, some buffer, from all the terrible loneliness and responsibility that came with this burden.

            Perhaps it was the real reason she’d sought out Remy.

            _Remy._

            She dropped her face into her hands again, her breath coming sharp and shaky on an upsurge of pain.  She was trying to be clinical about this.  She was _trying_.  But he’d never walked away from her like _that_ before.  And it hurt.  It hurt like fuck.

            No point in mulling it over.  It was time to go back to base and figure out her next move.

            She walked slowly along the length of the pier, turning her collar up against the sudden chill in the air as she rounded the corner onto the main street.

            She stopped.

            _He_ was standing there, leaning against a storefront halfway down the road, fanning a pack cards in his hand, fanning and shuffling, fanning and shuffling, all forced nonchalance.  Waiting for her, as he always did.  Waiting for her to come to him, so that he didn’t have to go to her.  It was only then that she allowed herself to hope, in a way she hadn’t done in a long time. 

            She blinked and wiped her eyes before gathering her wits and walking up to him, stopping only when she was right there beside him, watching the blur of the cards between his long fingers.  He didn’t look up at her, didn’t even say a word to acknowledge her.

            “Remy…” she began, soft, questioning, not knowing where to begin.

            “Rogue,” he cut across her pause in a mutter, “I couldn’t forget you if I tried.  Even if I _wanted_ to.”

            The cards whirred softly in his hands.  She reached out and grasped his wrist, staying his movements.  Only then did the cards stop.

            “Remy…” she murmured.  There were still no words she could find.  His name seemed to be more than enough, at least to her.  He glanced at her.  Hard.  Needful.  _Conflicted_.

            “You ask me for help, _chere_ ,” he spoke in a low voice. “What makes you t’ink I should give it to you?”

            “You’re still here, ain’tcha?” she returned, still light-headed with relief, with _emotion_.  And his mouth hitched.

            “Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t wanna case out a potential _deal_ , Rogue…”  He levered himself away from the wall and she released her grip on him reluctantly, her arm dropping to her side.  He turned to face her, closed the pack of cards one-handed, slipped them back into his pouch. “Especially if you’re gonna lay somet’ing _interestin’_ on de table in return…”

            She sucked in a breath at the insinuation.

            “No jokes, Remy,” she murmured, and he reached out, brushed that same lock of hair behind her ear again and said: “You t’ink I’m jokin’…” His laugh was soft, sardonic. “Kind of ironic, neh, _chere_?  I tell you de truth and you still t’ink I’m playin’ wit’ you…”

            It was what he did.  Lie, manipulate.  Say things to smooth a path of least resistance.  She was no exception.  She never had been.  And she was at her weakest right now, now when she needed him most.

            “Ah ain’t a fool, Remy,” she told him seriously.  His fingers were still warm, pressing against that sweet spot behind her ear, and she took his wrist again, pulled his hand away. “Ah _know_ you wouldn’t be standin’ here waitin’ for me if there wasn’t somethin’ in it for you.”

            And his voice was low, charged as he said: “Maybe _you’re_ de t’ing dat’s in it for me…”

            Her hand tightened instinctively on his wrist.

            “ _Stop it,_ ” she hissed, but his face remained straight, this time betraying nothing.

            “Stop what, _chere_?” he asked her quietly. “You still don’t believe me?” He took her free hand with his own, placed it against his cheek. “So take de truth from me, _chere_.  Absorb me.  You’ve done it before, it won’t make any difference.”

            “You _know_ that’s not true,” she retorted heatedly, but he wasn’t halfway done yet.

            “Really?  You don’t seem to be too worried about talkin’ to de ‘me’ up dere in your head.  If dat’s de case, why don’t you absorb me right now?  Everyt’ing you need t’ know will be right dere.  _Everyt’ing_.  All my secrets, all my lies.” She stared up at him dumbly, and he pressed her hand tighter against his face, continued in a furious rush: “And you still t’ink I’m playin’ you, _chere_ , when I’ve laid everyt’ing right here in front of you, Rogue.  All my cards on de table.  You can have it all, _chere_.  _All_ of it.  All of _me_.”

            She hesitated.  He didn’t understand.  Didn’t understand that it was his _future_ , not his past, that she needed to see, that she needed to secure.  But there was temptation in his offer.  She knew, deep down, that he didn’t believe she would do it.  But that didn’t stop the fascination, the lure, of uncovering all his truths in one fell swoop.  Why he was here, why exactly he had gone back to Sinister, why he was taking this path that was leading him so far away from her… She would know it all, if only she dared.  If only she dared to break what trust he had in her.

            “You know Ah can’t do that,” she told him on a breath.

            “You did it once.”

            “When there was nothing left to lose.”

            There was a silence; her grip on his wrist loosened.  He felt it; his hand moved back behind her ear and this time she didn’t remove it, even though her fingers lingered about his wrist.

            “So dis how you play it, _chere_.  No risks, all bets off till dere’s not’ing left to lose,” he stated softly.

            “You _know_ that.”

            “ _Oui_.  But I’m wonderin’ now – what is dere left to lose, _chere_?  How high are de stakes?  What are you playin’ for?”

            Her gaze darted to his again.  He’d bluffed her.  Prodded and pried in an attempt to see how far she was willing to go, how important this was to her.  A part of her wanted to hate him for it.  The other part felt a thrill of triumph that he knew her so well.

            “Ah’m playin’ for _you_ , Remy,” she rejoined, tracing the line of his cheekbone with her thumb.

            “So I see.” The corner of his lips twitched. “But how much you gonna put on me, Rogue?  How much do you _need_ me?”

            She paused, her thumb hovering against his skin, still held against his face by the pressure of his grip.  Whatever invitation he had given to her, it was still open.  She could still absorb him.  With all the risks involved.

            “If Ah absorb you now, whatever Ah learn from you won’t change what you do in the future,” she explained in a low voice. “Only _you_ can do that.”

            “Hm.” The white lock of hair was escaping from behind her ear and again he held it back, smoothing the errant strands back into place and caressing her almost casually as he did so. “So.  What dis all comes down to in de end is just how much you can manipulate me into doing what you want, and how much I can manipulate you in believin’ you want somet’ing else entirely.”

            He was infuriating.  Toying with her like this, still prodding and poking her, wanting a reaction from her to gauge.  She wasn’t going to give it to him.

            “Ah was hopin’ more that we could manipulate one another into somethin’ we _both_ want,” she returned, with just a hint of tentativeness, of sweetness, in her magnolias voice.  He heard it and paused.  His eyes blazed fire.

            “Now who’s playin’, _chere_ …?”

            “No.  No playin’, Remy.”

            “Bullshit, Rogue.  Dis what we do.  Play games wit’ each other…”

            “And Ah still have feelin’s for you.  That’s not a game, is it?”

            The words shut him up.  He blinked, his eyes flashing in the dimness, a noisy breath leaving his lips.

            It was a missed beat she took to her advantage.

            She disengaged her hand from his and turned away.

            And she’d barely taken a step when his grip snapped over her arm.

            “ _Rogue_ ,” he spoke – hoarse, urgent.

She turned back to him with her heart crashing wildly against her breast, feeling that this hard-won victory was one that could be stripped from her in a stone-cold second.  For a horrible, delicious moment he said nothing, seeming to fight an inner battle she could see but couldn’t quite understand.  He didn’t _want_ her to go.  But he wasn’t sure how to make her _stay_ either.  All this time he had been playing an angle, and it had failed.  Now he was holding back, reassessing, re-evaluating.  She could sense it.

            “Ah know what Ah want, Remy,” she spoke quietly, gravely, over his silence. “And Ah don’t want _this_.  Lies.  _Manipulation_.  Ah’m at a disadvantage here – Ah have everythin’ to lose and Ah know it.  But Ah need your help.  And Ah’m beggin’ yah here.  Ah need you t’ be honest with me.  No playin’, Remy.  _Please_.”

            They gazed at one another.  Wordless.  His hand still on her arm.

            His eyes glinted in the light of the streetlamps.

            And he drew her in.  Slowly.  Pulled her towards him step by step.   She only let him because she needed him that much – on more than one level.  It was that need – strong and sure and completely sincere – that allowed her to be reeled back into his space, more so than Irene’s prophecies, Irene’s assurances.  And when she was right there in front of him he took her face between his rough, warm palms and held her gaze so she couldn’t look away.

            “No games, _chere_ ,” he murmured passionately. “You t’ink I would have come here if _I_ didn’t have _feelin’s…_?”

            It was exactly what she needed to hear.  Her teeth pulled at her lip to suppress a whimper; and at the sound his gaze dropped, ran over her mouth intently.

            “I have feelin’s, Rogue,” he continued, his eyes still on her lips. “You t’ink I can even formulate a damn plan, a damn _lie_ , when I’m near you?”

            No…

            _Yes…_

            Because he _always_ lied.  And he was probably lying right _now_ …

But her heart was beating so crazy, so fast, so _greedily_ that she ignored it.

            “Your feelin’s and mine ain’t the same thing, Remy…”

            And he almost looked genuinely surprised at that.

            “Really?  How so…?”

            And she couldn’t help herself, not even when she knew it entailed throwing all her cards on the ground face-up before him…

            “Because Ah’m still _in love_ with you, Remy.”

            And he sucked in a breath.

As if she’d stolen it away. 

Finally, _finally_ , he was silent. 

And she wasn’t even sure which one of them moved forwards first, but suddenly they were kissing, deep and hard and _real_ after all their fencing; and they fought one another, with all the hunger and need that the past year had inflicted upon them, fought to get closer to one another, closer than was possible.  For a few moments, there were no words, no thoughts – just sensation, pure touch – and she was dizzy with it, with him, with the void inside her that couldn’t be filled no matter how close she held him, because it had been _so darn long_ …

            She broke away, only to surface, only to stop struggling for a closeness that couldn’t be, just to _hold him_ to her and _feel_ it for a moment.  She buried her face in his neck and _breathed_ …

            But his hand twined in her hair, nudged her head back gently, his mouth covering hers again in a velvet kiss, this time slow, unhurried.  Taking her lead, trying to make this _nice_ , soft.  And even then it seemed to pass in a blur.  She wasn’t even sure when it had ended, just as she had no idea how it began.

            They stood in the dark of the night for a long time after, foreheads pressed together, stealing fleeting kisses from one another, convinced that each would be their last until another followed.  It was only when they heard the sound of a Sentinel approaching that they drew apart unwillingly.

            “Bad place to be loiterin’…” Remy muttered as a hulking form came over the line of buildings across the street.  It halted, paused, and its eyes blazed into life.  The entire length of the road was illuminated in the beams of its gaze, bright as daylight; but Rogue and Gambit had both slipped into an alleyway before the circle of light could touch them.

            “It goin’?” Remy asked, as Rogue peeked round the corner.

            “Nope.  It’s just stayin’ there.”

            “Hm.  Takin’ its time t’night.  Wonder why.”

            The next moment the reason became clear.  The sound of inhuman howling was carried clearly on the night breeze, unholy shrieks that sent the hackles of most people – mutants or statics – standing on end.

            “Hounds,” Remy swore under his breath. “ _Merde_.”

            “We’re downwind from them,” Rogue warned him. “We’d better go.”

            He took her hand in his, tugged her towards him.

            “Come wit’ me.”

 

*


	6. Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite Rogue’s misgivings, Gambit agrees to give her help, although his promise isn’t as clear cut as it seems.

            He guided her through a maze of alleyways, quickly, quietly, her hand in his.

            He didn’t let go of it, not until she took it back herself – somehow, she needed to feel that this was _her_ decision, that wherever he was taking her to (and she knew _what_ he was taking her to, if nothing else) she was not being led.

            Behind them the drumbeat of the Sentinel’s footsteps faded the further the distance they put between them.  The sound never fully died though; and neither did the Hounds’ howls.

            “Where’re we goin’?” she asked after a few minutes.

            “My place,” he replied in a hushed voice.

            She almost halted then.  _Almost_.  Not because she didn’t want what she knew was coming, but because there had been no preamble, no lead-up; and certainly there had been no resolution down on the docks. 

            He seemed to sense that split second of hesitation.

            “It’s safe and it’s close,” he explained in a low tone. “You know a better place?”

            He half looked over his shoulder at her, and she realised that he was giving her an out.  He was giving her the chance to turn back, to say no to him. 

            But her eyes locked onto his, and she tried to communicate that she knew her own mind, that nothing would turn her.

            She said nothing, and neither did he. 

            One beats, two beats; he turned and the moment was gone.

 

            His apartment was even shabbier, even less lived in than the old safe house had been.

            As soon as they’d got in he’d crossed to the grimy rectangle of window and pulled the threadbare curtains partway over them.  They had barely kept out the nauseating brightness of the flickering streetlamp that stood, soldier-like and impassive, right outside his room.

            He’d peered between them, judging the distance between them and the Sentinel, muttering irritably that it was still headed in their direction, like he knew it was just going to be a horrible distraction from whatever would follow.

            Rogue had stood, silent and expectant, in the middle of the room, agonisingly aware of the fact that the only reason she was here was because of Irene’s insistence that she should be so. 

            Well, that and the fact that – despite her misgivings – she wasn’t sure she wanted his kisses to end.

            It was the most tortuous kind of agony, and she could barely contain it.

            So she stood there, watching him, illuminated only by the bluish glow of the lamplight.  Almost trembling under a clamour of emotions that threatened to strip her away to bare bones and a palpitating heart.

            He snapped the curtains shut.

            When he turned to her there was a look on his face, a hunger that he hadn’t worn since those days, those _nights_ , spent in the safe house.  It made her stomach flip flop.

            Because he had never given her an answer.

            He had never said he _wouldn’t_ help her.

            But he hadn’t said he _would_ either.

            And he was still going to get her.

            Because now he _knew_ she loved him, and he knew she wouldn’t say no.

            The knowledge of that chafed her.

            But she still needed an answer from him.  And – even worse – she needed _him_ , period.

            His gaze was so greedy, so intense, that she couldn’t stand it.  When he wet his lips she looked aside – if only to avoid the searing heat of that gaze – and shrugged off her jacket.  Aching and uncertain.  She paused, held it in her hand, chanced another look at him.  And he was still just _there_.  Looking at her.

            It was like being under a spotlight, burning up beneath it. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing to say in the face of it.

            And so she said nothing.

            Not for the first time she questioned what it was he wanted.

            How much of this was lust, and how much was something more.

            He must’ve read the question in her eyes for he suddenly moved forward – slow yet assured – covering the space between them.  He stopped within an arm’s length of her and held out his hand.

            Her answer was to hold out her jacket.

            He took it, he looked at it; he threw it aside.

            And she felt a breath tremble, suspended there, in her throat.

            What hold did he have over her, that made her walk towards him?  How on God’s earth could a man exert such a pull, reel her so easily into his orbit?

            Whatever he wanted, _truly_ wanted from this meeting, she wasn’t sure; just as she knew he wasn’t sure what it was _she_ truly wanted.

            But she was sure of one thing.

            They both wanted _this_.

            And despite her love, the mistrust in her made her halt when she stood right before him, so close she could sense his warmth and almost feel the crash of his heartbeat.

            He moved first.

            Leaned into her, putting his face into her hair, running his fingers lightly over her cheek.  Her heart soared and it sank.  His tenderness, his softness spoke of sincerity.  It spoke of all the things she felt, but did not dare to let go of lest she give herself away.

            But… _But._

            How could she refuse him when he came to her like this?

            She couldn’t.  She raised her face to his and almost at once his lips were on hers, followed by the slow crush of his mouth; unhurried yet insistent, deep yet somehow restrained.  As if he were holding back.  As if he wanted _her_ to take the lead, despite the fact that they both knew _he_ held the power.  Not her.

            The realisation made her pull away from him by a hair’s breadth, breaking their kiss.

            She gazed up at him and caught her lower lip beneath her teeth, assessing as she did so just how much she had to lose.  He hovered there needfully in those few heartbeats of indecision, and she knew he was wilfully staying himself from chasing down her kiss.  It gave her heart.  It gave her the hope that he cared more about her needs, her _feelings_ , than whatever it was that he thought he could gain from all this.

             “What?” he murmured softly, unable to help himself from leaning forward and kissing her lower lip, pulling back again only when she remained silent.

            And he was still waiting, waiting for _her_ to be the one to want this; and she made up her mind.  She took his hand in her own and guided it gently to the zipper of her bodysuit and whispered, “Here.”

            Permission having been given, he didn’t hesitate.

            He tugged the zipper down, right to the bottom; and she pushed the sleeves off her arms as he pushed the rest down over her hips and her thighs and her legs, until he was right there in front of her, a supplicant on his knees in silent worship.

            A painful breath lingered in her throat.

            He slid a finger under the side elastic of her plain cotton panties and _looked_ at her. 

            He warmed her with his breath and waited for her to say _yes._

            She panted, aroused and exposed and utterly in his control, despite knowing that this was an opening that he wanted _her_ to dictate.

            She didn’t know how to say it.  That it mattered more to her that she could trust him, that the past few months hadn’t really been _the end_ between them.

            So she said his name instead, on a quivering wisp of a breath.

            “ _Remy_ …”

            He seemed to recognise her summons.  Slowly he backed away, kissed a trail slowly up her body, over her navel, her stomach, between the valley of her breasts, up her throat and the slope of her chin, finally recapturing her mouth with his own and… …

And suddenly it was all happening so fast, so slow, as they finally undressed one another item by superfluous item of clothing, leading one another to the bed as they did so, in a dance as artless and untimed as Nature herself.  When at last they got there she stood before him as he sat on the edge; there was another pause, another moment of _give_ or _take_ , and as she teetered precariously on that moment of indecision the Sentinel passed by the window, its searchlight scouring over the flimsy curtains and sliding over her naked skin with a warm and tawny glow.

            Instinct took her and she froze under its impassive gaze.

            “It’s de Sentinels,” Remy said thickly; he reached out, placed a longing hand on her hip, hesitated. “We’re okay, _chere_.  Just pretend dey ain’t dere.”

            The searchlight passed over, sinking them once more into an inky darkness.  Only when it was gone did Rogue let out a trembling breath, caught once more in that terrible pause, his eyes on hers.  He was the one to move this time, reaching out and taking her hand in his, pressing a kiss to it just as he had used to do when they had been _together_.  That was when she gave in.  That was when she joined him on the bed.

 

            She had almost forgotten what it was to touch him.

            In all the months they had been apart she had imagined this moment, replayed it endlessly in her head with a feverish intensity, turned it over and over this way and that, trying to get it pitch perfect.  She had imagined the carefree joyfulness with which they had made love in the holiday home or their little room in Chicago, the casual familiarity they had had with one another’s bodies.

            This was different.

            Tentative, unsure.  Exploratory – but no less sweet for that.

            She knew he had been wrong when he had said that they’d never really been together in the first place.

            Because they had, they _had_ , whether they’d meant it or not.  And it was confusing and painful and hurtful as hell because they’d never ended it, not _really_ , and yet here they were in this no-man’s land, feeling their way back into a space they thought they’d covered long before, a space where neither was sure what they now meant to one another. 

            Except that they both somehow knew that a part of it had gone back to being make-believe – a role that Rogue felt she was no longer good at playing anymore.

            Her feelings were right there, lingering under cracks and seeping out through fissures.  It was trickling out in kisses that were too soft, in caresses that were too gentle.  Her choreography, her earnestness, gave too much away. 

            And yet… this wasn’t merely a transaction to him, not the way he had implied on the docks. She could tell by the way he bore the intimacy of her tenderness. No matter how he postured or played he was unravelled by her touch. And when she touched him, the way he looked at her, looked a thousand yards away from her… it betrayed enough – just enough – for her to believe, perhaps to know that, free of Irene’s dubious assurances, they still had each other.

            A searchlight brushed past the window again and she froze beneath him, seeing his hair glint like bronze in the heat of its glow, the planes of his face rise and fall into stark cliffs of light and shadow.  His eyes were on hers, glowing like embers as the light winked out and left them both in darkness.

            She still couldn’t move, fearful that the spotlight would come again; and he leaned into her, trying to ease her out of it by kissing that spot behind her ear and whispering, “Say somethin’.”

            And she couldn’t, her heart was too full, her mouth was thick with love for him, and he backed away and looked right into her eyes, silent and beseeching.

            “Say somethin’, _chere_.”

            “What?” she murmured.

            “I dunno.  Anythin’.”

            Anything?  Anything to take his mind away from the fact that this was too loving, too intense?

            “Like what?” she asked; but he said nothing, dipping his head, kissing her neck, her shoulder, her breast, running his tongue over first one nipple, then another… His fingertips grazing the length and breadth of her body, replaced only by the familiar roughness of his palms, torturing her, trying to get her to _speak_ …

            “Remy…” she gasped, her hand in his hair; and he climbed back upwards, raised his face to hers, only the merest hint of desperation in his voice as he begged her, “ _Say somethin’…_ ”

            His eyes burned like fire in the night.  She knew what he wanted.  Something to make things the way they _used_ to be.  To make it light-hearted and uncomplicated, like the summer days, the summer nights spent sparring with their bodies and their lust and their witty sweet-nothings.  It wrenched at her heart like a physical thing.

            And so she said it.

            The first thing that popped into her head.  Something honest and true.

            “Ah’ve missed you, Remy.”

            It wasn’t what he had wanted to hear; but the effect it had on him wasn’t what she had expected either.  The noise he made in reply was lustful, impatient, low and guttural, sexier than all hell; and just as he nudged at the entrance of her – that was when the Hound pack screamed.

            Her body went rigid.

            “ _Damn_ ,” he blasted on a hot breath as the cacophony continued, so close that it seemed to be right down on the streets below.  It was more than enough to send a chill down even the most hot-blooded man alive.  Several heaving heartbeats passed wherein the din refused to die, and when it showed no signs of abating Remy swore and rolled onto his back beside her.

            “Fuckin’ assholes got you up here wit’ me,” he muttered almost incoherently, his accent slurred more than usual with unfulfilled desire. “But I guess dey don’t know when de fuck dey ain’t wanted no more.”

            The Hounds went right on screaming on top of him.  At that point even Remy had to fall silent.  They both knew what the ungodly song meant.  Some unfortunate soul was being tracked.  It was a hideous fact that hung in the air between like some thick and cloying oil slick.  Rogue could not help but sense the roiling resentment he felt in the face of it.

            Without thinking she shifted onto her side, compelled by a sudden need to syphon off the tension from him.  His breathing was rapid, each breath chasing the next, his torso rising and falling with its syncopated rhythm.  She reached out impulsively, brushed that lined and scarred body with just the tips of her fingers, loving the way his muscles twitched and balked instinctively under her touch.

            He hadn’t expected her softness.  His gaze darted to hers and she couldn’t deny it – it nailed her like an arrow and she was powerless to hide from it.  She wanted him to be as vulnerable as her; she wanted to hear him say it.

            _We were always together._

_We never stopped._

_This is just us picking up where we left off._

            But he didn’t.  And she wasn’t foolish enough to believe that nothing had changed, that maybe he hadn’t mentally gone right back to somewhere called _square one_.

            It didn’t stop her from touching him though, from questing over the valleys and ridges of his body – the hardness of his chest, the curves of his ribs, the line running down his stomach to his navel.

            She halted.

            There was a scar on the side of his abdomen that was different to all the rest – small, circular, star-shaped – one that she’d barely clocked before.  She ran her finger over it, marking it out, tracing its contours with the tip of her nail.  Something tugged at the back of her mind, and she realised – with a vague yet inexplicably avaricious intensity – just how tempted she was to read the history of that scar with a single _pull_ of her vampiric power.

            Somehow he seemed to sense her thought.  His fingers suddenly caught her own, easing her hand into his grip, drawing it away.

            She raised her eyes to his then, seeing that his breathing had changed, each exhalation skimming from between slightly parted lips in long, measured bursts, like her touch both soothed and terrified him in turns.

            Outside, down below, the Hound screeching retreated to somewhere a little less intrusive.

            “Rogue,” he said.

            It wasn’t a question, wasn’t a statement.  It was what it was.  A name, a clarion call.

            He took her hand and brought it to his lips.  He kissed her knuckles one by one until her breath came fast and light.

            “Remy…” she murmured, giddy; and he kissed the inside of her wrist, whispered, “ _Beautiful…_ ”

            Wordlessly he eased her once more onto her back; his grip locked her hand above her head, his body surged over hers with too much impatience to leave her in any doubt as to what he wanted.

            His eyes devoured every inch of her face and he muttered as though impelled, “I’ve missed you too, y’know…  Your hair… your lips… your mouth…” He moved forward, feathering kisses against her jaw, adding, “your skin… against mine…” And his free hand traversed her body, making her shudder and shake as he put his mouth against her ear and finished in a muffled tone, “Your eyes, _chere_ …”

            His palm ran the swell of her hip and her buttocks as she thought about all the ways she had missed him that didn’t involve _this_.

            The texture of his hand in her own.

            The sound of his laughter, his _genuine_ laughter, warm and light and full of joy.

            The way he let his shields down, just for her, the way she knew he _wasn’t_ doing now.

            And she wondered whether he ever missed the same.

            Whether he ever missed more than just _this._

            His hand hooked her knee and lifted her thigh, hiking it up against the flat, muscular dip of his waist, the hard, steep ridge of his hip.  His arousal pressed up hotly against hers, the brutal connection saying more than his words, than his kisses.

            She gasped.

            He bit his tongue against a feral smile that had nothing to do with tenderness.

            And yet he was still hovering.

            _Waiting_.

            For _her_.

            “ _Gawd_ …”

            She panted.

            “Tell me you want it, _chere_ ,” he ground out like a man possessed.

            And for a few incoherent seconds the thought passed her mind that it was a miracle either of them could say _no_ when they were both _right there_ and all it would take was a single _push._

            “ _Tell me_ ,” he almost growled, and she didn’t understand it, she didn’t get his hesitation, but her mouth was too dry to make a reply… And so she answered the only way she knew how – she shifted, pressing a foot up against the small of his back, just a _hint_ of insinuation and…

            Insinuation was all he needed.

            His hips flexed almost involuntarily and _god god god_ he was sliding inside her again after all this time and…

            The sound that came from the back of his throat was primal, beautiful, almost painfully erotic; and she realised, somewhere in the dizzying midst of it all, that she was making the exact same sound too.        There was a split second – a pause – where he looked almost stunned, where it seemed he could barely believe that this was happening.

            And she reached out into that space.

            Stroked his face with a trembling palm.

            Awakening him with her touch.

            And _oh God._

            They were _moving_.

 

            Sweet and blissful and heady and absolutely no thought outside of one another.  It was exactly as it used to be back in the early days of their relationship, the ones played out in the safe house, when everything was all heated exploration of one another’s bodies and nothing else.  That was what the long months had taught them.  How to want and need and hunger again.  How to be greedy and lustful and irresponsible.  How to want and have it all.

            And then she felt it.  An almost audible clicking into place, as if something _right_ had just slotted into the space where it belonged.

            It stayed there, quiet, lodged at the back of her mind.  A moment there, then gone – flickered out.

            Moments, minutes later – she wasn’t sure – she lay on her back on the bed as if washed up on sunny shores, basking in the afterglow of her orgasm with an overwhelming sensation of calm satisfaction.

            And for a while – just for a while – the future was where it belonged – in the future.

           

            Later – he stood by the window in his boxer shorts, a cigarette in one hand and his cell phone in the other, pressed to his ear.  He didn’t say much.  Just the odd ‘uh-huh’ and ‘yup’ and finally ‘I won’t’, before he ended the call.  She watched from her seat, cross-legged on the bed, as he stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray on the windowsill, closed the pane shut and turned back to her.

            “Damn,” was all he said.

            “Work?” she asked him, plaiting off a section of her hair absently.

            “ _Oui_.”

            “Essex?”

            “Yeah.”

            He glanced over at her appraisingly.  She didn’t say anything; but she was certain the tautness of her lips must have given her away, because he looked aside as though uncertain what to say.  Despite the glorious intimacy they had just shared, Rogue was horribly aware of how near and yet so far he seemed, even in the smallest of actions.  Him working for Sinister was the least of it.  It was the fact that he was smoking again, that he was obviously hiding _something_ from her; that this apartment was barely lived in and she suspected that he only used it to bring other women here.  It was all of these things and more.  It was the fact that there was this huge gulf between them, that she was only here on a wing and a prayer and she could barely even trust to the fact that he was on her side anymore.  But she was here.  She knew she wanted to _be_ here.

            And best or worst of all, she needed his _help_.

            “Shitty boss?” she asked him, trying to sound nonchalant and not quite succeeding.

            “Heh.” His eyes were still on the floor, his expression as indifferent as she couldn’t bring herself to be. “Not so much shitty, _chere_ , as demandin’.   But he pays fuckin’ well.”

            She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

            “So why _this_ shithole?”

            And his smile was wry.

            “Don’t get me wrong.  It ain’t like Sinny ain’t got a nice, fancy set-up.  But he don’t appreciate some of my dirty habits.” He levelled his eyes to hers, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You know me, _chere_.  I only come here to _indulge_.” He let the words linger meaningfully between them, an excruciating moment that was only interrupted as his cell phone pinged.  He swore and turned, walked back to the window again as he read whatever text or email had appeared.

            “Oh, so Ah’m a dirty habit now?” she queried tartly, fully aware that he didn’t want her to see whatever was in that message.

            “ _Non_.  You’re a very _good_ one.  My _only_ good one.” His reply was absent-minded.  He paced a bit, reading the message over and over and over.

            She watched him silently, wondering.  Wondering just how much he was playing Sinister for a fool, if he really _was_ still on the side of the angels.  She didn’t doubt that he _thought_ he was, but even so… doubt still lingered.  It was what her dreams of the future had taught her.  Everything must be doubted, until it came to pass. 

            She tugged the bedcovers up a little higher against the chill of the night air, wishing that it wasn’t _him_ she had to doubt.

            He was quiet now, looking out the window, leaning against the sill with both hands as if some heavy burden rested between his shoulders.  She wanted to reach out and console him, even if she knew that he wasn’t willing to be honest with her about whatever it was he was still doing for Essex.

            “You said you needed my help,” he spoke at last, his tone heavy, still not facing her. “So.  What did you have in mind?”

            She stared at his back, holding her breath.  Here it was.  The moment.  He’d accepted her plea for help.  And now that he had, she hardly knew what to say.

            She knew instinctively, however, exactly what to say to hook him.

            All she needed to do was play from an angle, to come in from leftfield, to make it sound like a deal he couldn’t resist.  She didn’t even have to consciously formulate an answer.  Suddenly it was there on the tip of her tongue without her having to think it.

            “That’s a hard question to answer,” she spoke at last in a quiet voice. “Ah know what it is that Ah _don’t_ need from you.”

            That piqued his interest.  He turned to face her, his expression expectant.

            “Go on,” he said.  She looked at her fingers, not sure how to put this.

            “Ah need you _not_ to be on Essex’s side.”  

His expression was closed, flat as a mirror surface; but his eyes shot to hers and stayed there.  Sharp.  Unwavering.

            She said nothing, tongue-tied under the force of his gaze.  She was afraid, afraid of pushing him away from her again, of losing his hard-won acceptance – even more, of making him resent her, despise her.  In the end she didn’t have to explain it.  After a moment of silence he rejoined her on the bed, looked straight into her eyes and said:

            “You’ve _seen_ t’ings, haven’t you.”

            She nodded.

            “ _Merde_.” He took in a breath. “I _knew_ it.  I _knew_ dis was all about those crazy Diaries…”

            His phone pinged again.  He lifted it up again instinctively, but she took it from him, switched it off and threw it onto the other side of the bed.

            “Rogue…” he began, his voice teetering on the edge of both exasperation and helplessness and she stopped him.

            “Listen to me, Remy.  Ah don’t need you t’ _do_ anythin’ for me, Ah don’t even need you to believe any of this.  Ah just need an ally.  Ah need _you_.  You’re the one person Ah need more than anyone else, and if Ah don’t have you…” She halted, unable to say those next words, swallowing them down before she _could_ say them and make them somehow _real_.

            _If Ah don’t have you, Ah’ll die._

He frowned.

            “I don’t understand,” he spoke softly, seeing her turmoil. “I pick and choose my loyalties carefully, _chere_.  I don’t give out my trust willingly.  But you’ve always had both.  My loyalty _and_ my trust.  Despite all de other shit,” and he waved his hand as if they’d all just been a nuisance – her whoring, her absorption of him… “Do you even need to ask, Rogue?”

            His words gave her heart; but nevertheless she hesitated.  She was desperate not to hurt him; but whatever she said to him she knew she must, in some way.  Again he saw her turmoil, and his face went very still.

            “What have you seen?” he asked her softly, gravely.

            “It might not be the future, Remy.  It’s only a _possibility_ …”

            “I know how it works, Rogue.” His tone was flat. “What have you seen?”

            She took a breath.  And another.  Just thinking about it… the dream… where everything was _wrong_ … the knife at her breast… And later, that vision of the future… Sinister’s needle in her arm… And him, standing at Essex’s side… just thinking about it killed her.

            “Ah… Ah see you, Remy,” she explained at last, trying not to falter even as she began. “You, with Sinister.  You…Ah think you let him _kill_ me…”

            His eyes went wide.  And yes, she saw it all in there.  Surprise, disbelief.  Pain.  Denial.  He looked away from her, shook his head slowly.

            “Dat ain’t possible,” he spoke after a long moment, through gritted teeth.

            “How do you _know_?” she whispered, and his gaze was penetrating as he replied:

            “Do you really believe I could let anyone hurt you, Rogue?”

            “You don’t know what the future could bring, Remy,” she reasoned with him. “Or how your feeling’s could change.  Just a moment could be all it takes…”

            He shook his head again, his lips held taut.

            “After everyt’ing I’ve done for you, wit’ Kincaid, wit’ Guess… You t’ink it could be possible dat I could stand by and watch Essex _end_ you?”

            The words were so seriously, so gravely said that she _wanted_ to believe him, even if she felt so certain that there was something else, something _more_ that he wasn’t telling her…

            “Ah couldn’t believe it either,” she murmured helplessly. “But every day the dreams get clearer and clearer.  You’re on a trajectory, Remy.  And Ah can’t stop you.  Ah’ve tried so hard to derail it.  That’s why Ah called you today.  Ah figured if Ah told you everythin’, Ah could stop it all in its tracks…”

            And she hoped to God her gamble had paid off…

            He stood and ran his hand through his hair; she sensed that whatever burdens he had had before she had added to them.  She reached out and clasped his free hand.

            “Promise me, Remy,” she begged him urgently. “Promise me you won’t let this happen.  Not for my sake, but for yours.  Whatever hold Sinister has over you, you have to break it.  Otherwise…”

            _Otherwise he’ll just end up ownin’ you forever…_

            “You don’t understand, Rogue,” he returned quietly, looking down at her. “What it is between me and Essex runs deeper than just blackmail, or even a sense of loyalty.  It’s coded into my DNA.”

            “Ah understand,” she half-whispered. “He made you.  For a purpose you still don’t know.  But he doesn’t _define_ you.  He doesn’t make you the man you are today.  And just because he made you doesn’t mean you’re soulless, or bad or evil or wicked.  You’ve proved that a thousand times over.”

            “Have I?” He looked both unconvinced and helpless in turns, so much so that she took his hand, the one she still held, and placed it upon her cheek.  She believed in him, whatever her dreams told her.  She _believed_ in him.

“Come back to me, Remy,” she whispered. “Come back to _us_.  We need you, Remy.  To end the Sentinel’s rule, to end the killing…”

            He laughed softly, shaking his head.

            “And you still believe dat, _chere_?  Even after Rachel abandoned us?  Destiny was right.  She _was_ a saviour.  Just not for _us_.  She changed the past… But it didn’t change our future.  She did de sensible t’ing.  She escaped into de Timestream.  Accept it, Rogue.  Dere’s no way we can change anyt’ing now.”

            So he’d heard about Rachel too.  She guessed Essex had better intel than she’d first thought.

            “So that’s what this is all about, Remy?  Stayin’ with Essex is _easier_ than…”

            “Savin’ de world?  Absolutely.”

            She held his gaze; he held hers.  There was little else to be said.  He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her lips, chaste but lingering, before standing to recover his phone from the other side of the bed.  She slid in under the covers, turning over onto her side, wondering just how much she had succeeded in staving off this awful future, if indeed at all.  She understood his choice; she even understood his need to put his own interests above everything else.  But she didn’t dare to believe that his will was greater than Sinister’s, no matter how much confidence he had in that fact.

            Whatever message he’d picked up on his phone, it didn’t take him long to read it.  Presently the weight of him settled in next to her, and his arms encircled her from behind, his chin propped against her shoulder.  Just like old times.  When he pressed a kiss into the dip of her shoulder, she could almost have believed they were a world away, back in the safe house, back in a time where they were selfish enough to think only for and of each other.

 

            But that was then and this was now, and now meant _nothing could be trusted,_ _until it came to pass._

 

*

            _She’s there._

_Under the August moonlight._

_“Be there,” he’d said.  And everything he hadn’t said had been implicit in the silence that followed._

_If you’re not there, I’ll understand.  I’ll get it.  I’ll leave you alone.  You won’t have to say a thing t’ me about it again._

_Sometimes she hates him.  His irreverence, his pig-headedness.  His refusal to just damn well back off.  Whenever she parries his attempted seductions he ducks and weaves and comes right back in around them.  Like he’s pinning down a butterfly.  Throw enough darts and one is bound to hit._

_She hates it, but she’s flattered by it._

_It’s why she’s here, walking along the shore of the lake, down towards the cedar tree._

_She’s intrigued to know what this is all about.  Whether he really_ will _back off if she tells him she’s had enough and this is_ over _._

_She’s scared, but for some reason she’s upped the ante.  Worn that white dress she knows he likes.  Left her hair down, the way she can tell he prefers from all the many times he’s subconsciously loosened it when she’s let him get close enough to touch it.  She’s even wearing the butterfly pendant.  True, she rarely takes it off these days, but… he doesn’t need to know that.  It’s nearly always hidden underneath her uniform and her thick, formless sweaters anyway._

_He’s already there, under the graceful boughs of the ancient tree._

_She half pauses, caught in a sudden and gut-wrenching hesitation; but at exactly the same moment he looks up, he sees her there; and she has no choice.  She continues.  She joins him._

_“Rogue,” he says._

_It’s simple enough, a single word, but he makes it sound like a thousand beautiful things – like red silk sheets and melted chocolate, like summer siestas and sun-warmed skin.  It’s not her name but she loves the way he says it.  She loves the way it makes her feel._

_“Ah’m here,” she says, trying for lightness, familiarity – but her tone is one of shyness and intimacy and she’s almost embarrassed by it, even more so when his gaze grazes over her, when he shows her just how much he likes what she’s done for him._

_“You look beautiful,_ chere _,” he says, and she parts her lips to make a suitably blasé reply which doesn’t come._

_He smiles like he knows._

_He stretches out a hand and says, “I want t’ show you somethin’.”_

_She trusts him.  Despite all the parrying, despite the way he always holds something back when he’s with her.  She puts her gloved hand in his._

_He leads her away from the shadow of the tree and the moonlit mirror of the lake._

_He takes her to the boathouse and there’s something in his walk – his ever so slightly hurried pace, his silence, the way he looks ahead, never back at her.  He’s impatient.  This is something he’s waited far too long for.  It makes her nervous._

_He only glances at her when they arrive.  His eyes over his shoulder.  Silent.  Assessing._

Definitely _holding something back._

_They climb the creaky wooden steps up to the veranda and she stops._

_There is nothing so passé as roses and chocolates, but on a small wicker table there is wine, and the scene is illuminated only by the light filtering out, soft and tawny, from the boathouse windows.  She gapes.  If she’s still breathing she’s barely aware of it._

_She can’t say a word._

_“You don’t like it?” he asks from behind her, and she flounders there with her mouth half open._

_He’s taken her on picnics, to Harry’s Hideaway, to the fanciest restaurant in town.  He’s even managed to coax her back to his room… But this is different.  Warm.  Cosy.  Intimate.  More so than anything else he’s dared to impart to her in the short time they’ve known one another._

_He’s made an effort for her, despite the fact that she can’t trust him, despite the fact that she pushes and pushes and sometimes just plain tells him to fuck off because she can’t_ stand _his closeness anymore.  He’s_ still _made this gesture._

 _This can’t be a trick.  He_ has _to care._

_He steps up onto the deck and turns to her._

_“I want you to like it,” he says.  He takes her hand again, runs his thumb gently over her fingers. “Do you?”_

_She still can’t speak.  So she swallows.  She nods._

_He smiles, not quite with relief but with something close to it.  He turns away and walks over to the wine on the table whilst she slowly climbs the last squeaky step.  She runs her hand over the railing as she walks, overcome with a powerful desire to tear off her gloves and answer his earnestness, his sincerity._

_She can’t.  She’s too afraid.  But she’s close to_ not _being afraid.  She’s close to throwing all caution to the wind, and it won’t take much for her to do so._

_"I wanted t’ bring you somewhere nice,” he’s saying; she hears the clink of wineglasses behind her. “Somewhere dat isn’t strange, y’know, but somewhere where no one’s gonna get in de way.  Where we can be alone.”_

_She swivels and sees him turning the corkscrew._

_“’Ro said there was gonna be a storm t’night, but I asked her t’ chase those clouds away for us,_ chere _, so there ain’t no need t’ worry…”_

_She stares._

_He pops the cork._

_He pauses and throws her a look._

_“You gonna say somet’ing,_ p’tit _?”_

_She opens her mouth._

_“Ah didn’t think—” she begins and abruptly stops._

_He sees the look on her face, and in the ensuing silence he places the bottle down and comes to her.  He takes both her gloved hands in his, looks into her eyes and says, “What?  Dat I cared?”_

_And she finds her tongue._

_“We barely know each other.”_

_It isn’t what he expects her to say.  His brow furrows, questioning._

_“So?”_

_The gaze she replies with is earnest._

_“Why can’t you tell me about yourself?”_

_And he raises an eyebrow._

_“Why can’t you touch me?”_

_Silence._

_She looks away first._

_“You know why Ah can’t.”_

_“Non,” he replies seriously. “I don’t.  There’s a reason why you can’t control your powers, chere.  You gonna tell me what it is?”_

_He’s still holding her hands in his.  They’re so warm beneath the soft silk opera gloves, warmer than anything she’s ever touched._

_“Because… Ah’m scared,” she explains simply, shamefully._

_“And why d’you t’ink I can’t tell you about myself?”_

_She looks up at him.  There’s something in his eyes.  A kind of sadness.  And she feels it then – her love for him.  It’s the first time she really, truly acknowledges it.  That she’s_ in love _with him._

_He lightly squeezes her hands before he drops them._

_He goes back to the glasses and pours out the wine._

_And she feels he’s given something to her._

_Something he’s never given to anyone before._

_And it’s the greatest prize he could ever bestow upon her._

_The trust that he has in her._

_The faith that, with her, he can and will be honest._

 

*


	7. Betrayal

            They were both awoken the following morning by a deafening _BOOM_ that seemed to emanate from a place not so very far away.

            Rogue was up like a shot, sitting up in bed as the sound reverberated through the room, making the walls shake and the furniture rattle.  Remy was even faster, throwing back the covers and making for the window before she’d even managed to clock that the sound had come from outside and not indoors, or a dream, or even her own head.  Sometimes, it was difficult to tell these days.

            “What the _hell_ was that?” she exclaimed, as Remy threw open the window and leaned out to have a look.

            “ _Merde_ ,” he muttered under his breath; the look on his face cut through the fog in her head like a knife.

            “ _What?_   Is it the Sentinels?” she cried, alarmed, clambering out from under the covers haphazardly.

            “ _Non_ ,” he replied. “Not de Sentinels.”

            “Then _what_?” she persisted, confused and irritated, as she scrambled into her underwear and joined him at the window.  The skyline was cold, grey, the sun having barely just risen.  There were no Sentinels.  There was, however, a thin line of black, acrid smoke curling out onto the horizon several blocks away.  It was getting thicker and heavier by the second.

            “Bomb?” she suggested.

            “Possible,” he answered.

            Any further conversation was cut off by their phones pinging almost simultaneously.  At the sound they shared a look, a tacit acknowledgement that the intersection of all these events was one coincidence too many.  Both turned and went for their phones with the sense that what they were about to hear was not going to be good.

            There was a single message on her cell, from Logan.

            _WHERE R U?_ was all it read.

            She was about to text him back when there it was again.

            _BOOOOOOOM!!_

            The sound was louder this time, the aftershock shaking Remy’s ashtray right off the nightstand.  He was on the phone already, changing into his gear at the same time, faster than she’d ever seen him get dressed before.

            “I’m on it,” was all he said, before chucking the phone onto the bed and pulling his shirt over his head.

            Rogue gave up on the text and speed dialled Logan instead.  It barely rang before he picked up.

            “Where the _fuck_ are you, Rogue?” he yelled into the phone.  In the background she could hear shouting, screaming, the sound of debris falling.  She decided to dispense with the pleasantries.

            “What’s goin’ on?” she asked him instead.

            “I need you here _now_!” It looked like he wasn’t the only one jettisoning the idea of communicating useless information. “Look out the nearest window.  When can you get here?”

            “Ten tops,” she answered breathlessly.  She was already halfway into her bodysuit as she said it.

            “Make sure it’s no more than that,” he barked, before the line went dead.

            She cast the phone aside and shoved her arms into the sleeves of her suit, zipping up just as another _BOOM!_ shook the room.  Remy was already fully dressed, shrugging on his trench coat as she made a grab for her boots.

            “ _What_ is going on?” she exclaimed, bewildered, as the room juddered with enough force to make the ceiling rain cobwebs.  This time Remy deftly caught the lighter as it jumped off the edge of the nightstand.

            “My next paycheck, dat’s what,” he replied, exhilarated, as he dropped the lighter into his coat pocket, seemingly enjoying every moment of this.  She didn’t have time to voice the sudden misgivings welling up in her at his remark.  The next second he had crossed the room towards her, caught her up in his arms and kissed her passionately.  Whatever suspicions had newly formed in her mind, she forced herself to hold them back for a moment as she wound her fingers into his hair, kissing him back with equal passion.  It was only when another _BOOM!_ sounded that they tore apart, both gasping for breath.

            “See you on de other side, _chere_ ,” he grinned, before turning and running right out the room without her.

            She swore, looked for her jacket, found it in a heap in a corner, tugged it on as she ran after him out the door… only to find him nowhere in sight.

            “ _Wait!  Remy!_ ” she hollered down the hallway.

            There was no reply.  He was already long gone.

 

*

 

            By the time she’d got to the source of the commotion, the explosions had stopped.

            The fires, however, had not.

            An entire gas station, the source of the smoke and flames, had been completely totalled.  Telltale cracks and chasms criss-crossed the complex as if a localised earthquake had hit it.  The gas station had spilled its guts and those guts were now a raging inferno that was getting worse by the minute.

            “Rogue!” Logan’s voice called from somewhere nearby.  She spun round just in time to see him approaching her from a nearby convenience store that had also been hit by the tremors.  Over his shoulder she saw Jubilee and Synch ushering out some scared customers who’d been stuck inside.

            “Logan!” she cried, jogging to meet him. “Mah God, what the hell happened here!”

            “Sinister’s Marauders,” he replied, catching his breath as he came to a stop. “They were attackin’ civs, God fuckin’ dammit!”

            Suddenly the damage pattern made sense.

            “Arclight,” she intoned darkly.

            “Yup.” He nodded. “She pretty much came in and wrecked the joint.  The others got to the people in the gas station before we could.”

            “ _Shit_ ,” she muttered.  She had to admit, he was being pretty calm about this, considering the level of carnage going on here.  Under normal circumstances he’d be tipping over into a berserker rage.  But that wasn’t what was bothering her right now.  What _was_ worrying her was the fact that if Sinister’s flunkies were the cause of all this, then Remy stood a pretty good chance of being involved in this too.

            “Where are the Marauders now?” she asked him quickly.

            “That’s what I’m worried about,” he growled. “They hightailed it while we were takin’ care of the civs that were still breathin’.  Emma’s workin’ on it right now.” He paused, shouted over his shoulder at Jubilee who was calming the scared crowd of statics nearby. “That all of ‘em, Jubes?”

            “Think so!” the girl shouted back, and Logan looked as satisfied as he could.  Rogue had heard enough.

            “Ah’m gonna go look for them,” she said decidedly, turning away from the inferno.

            “Yeah?  And where you gonna look?” Logan’s expression was piqued. “Wait for Emma to finish her scan.  Likelihood is, they’ve split up.”

            “Or they’re runnin’.  You want them to get away?” she retorted impatiently.

            “If they came and pulled a stunt like this just to run away, why the hell would they bother?  Think about it, Rogue.  The Marauders go for government facilities and mutant internment camps.  This place has no strategic value to them whatsoever.  It’s a ruse.  A ploy to get _us_ to come out.  Now they’re tryin’ to split us up.”

            Rogue bit back on her protests, acknowledging the logic of his words.  But what he didn’t know was that Remy had something to do with this, and she knew that if she told him that, he’d probably end up gutting the man.  Which happened to be the last thing she wanted.

            Just as she was about to give in, Emma walked up and interrupted.

            “Rogue,” she greeted the other woman sarcastically. “Nice to see you actually made it.”

            “Shut up, Emma,” Logan shot at her before Rogue could. “Just gimme the lowdown.”

            “Arclight’s off the radar,” Emma reported just a little begrudgingly. “Probably gone into reserve.  I’m sensing Harpoon and Riptide somewhere close, but it’s bloody hard to tell with all the chaos going on round here.  The statics’ fear is just making way too much white noise.  Speaking of noise…” As if on cue, her words were curtailed by the sound of sirens screaming in over the horizon. “Seems like we’re getting some emergency personnel into the mix.”

            “Good,” Logan spoke gruffly. “Means they can see to the statics while we go after the Marauders.  Sense anythin’ now, Emma?”

            She glared at him.

            “I’m not a performing monkey, Logan,” she snapped irritably. “Do you know how draining it is to home in on one person when all this _cacophony_ is going on in the background?  Having all these sirens makes it even—”

            Whatever she would have said remained unspoken.  She was cut off mid-sentence by a glowing white slither of gas pipe screaming towards them at break neck speed – with only seconds to spare she had turned diamond, the charged missile exploding right in the centre of her back.  Out of sheer instinct, Rogue had ducked and rolled even before Emma had hit the ground.  When she looked up again she saw Emma’s now non-diamond form lying inert, bloody and burnt, amongst the splintered shards of piping.

            There was no doubting that the makeshift missile had been sent by Harpoon.

            “ _Shit_!” Logan spat, looking this way and that, trying desperately to gauge the projectile’s trajectory.  Rogue knew that wherever it had come from, Harpoon himself was probably long gone.  Logan knew it too.

            “Get under cover!” he roared to whoever was in earshot. “They’re here!”

            No sooner had he got the order out than another explosion rocked the nearby gas station, throwing Rogue off of her feet and into an already debris-strewn street.  For a few seconds all she saw was stars, all she heard was the sound of her ears ringing.  When her senses started to level out she saw that she had crawled behind a nearby car.  Lousy cover, but the best she could do considering the situation.  Logan and the others were nowhere to be seen.

            She propped herself up against the car and into a squatting position, paused a moment to catch her breath.  She needed to reassess.  The truth was she had no idea where any of Sinister’s goons were, and out here on the street she was a sitting duck.  And then there was Remy…

            _What the hell are you up to, Cajun?  What is this all about?_

            She ran into an alleyway opposite her, peeked out round the corner.  Most of the street was, by now, engulfed in smoke – she couldn’t see anyone she recognised in the melee of scared and injured citizens.  A convoy of fire trucks, ambulances and police cars suddenly zipped past her and ground to a halt.  She knew better than to be seen.  She was just about to turn and run when she saw him.

            Remy.

            Standing about a hundred yards down the road, by the cordoned off entrance to a subway station that was under construction.  Looking right at her.

            He smiled when he saw that she had noticed him, turned, and leapt over the construction sign like a gazelle, down into the depths of the subway.  She could only do what she knew he wanted her to do, what _Irene_ wanted her to do, and that was follow.  She slid out of her hideaway and ran down after him.

            Strip lighting fizzed and popped above her head as she stepped onto the main concourse, flickering with every rumble and jolt of the battle on the street above her.  She navigated the powered down ticket barriers with ease, came to a stop in the middle of the hall.  There were escalators leading down on both her left and right; elevators were in front of her.  Another thud sounded ominously from above.  Dust shook loose from the ceiling, obscuring her view with a fine filter.  She turned a full circle, seeing nothing, no trace of him.

            _Where are yah, Remy…?_

            Then she heard it.  A buzzing, a crackling, from somewhere behind her and to her right, emanating from one of the ticket gates she’d just passed through, growing louder and louder and—

            _Shit!_

            She dove for cover that wasn’t there, just as the charged gate exploded; she skidded across the floor on her belly, dust and plaster invading her mouth, and…

            _CRASH!_

            The entire entrance caved in behind her in a cascade of broken masonry.

            She was trapped.

            She swore viciously, spitting out the grit on her tongue.

 

            _Fuckin’ Cajun fuckin’ trapped me down here when there’s a war goin’ on up there and people_ need _me…!!_      

And yeah.  She was pissed now.

            Rogue stood slowly as the dust settled, angrily brushing herself down with a brusque sweep of both hands.  So he wanted her down here, for some reason she didn’t think she wanted to figure out – certainly not when _his_ people were up there attacking her own, not when Emma was badly injured and God knew how many civs were dead.  And here they were again.  Him playing an angle, and her hopelessly stuck down here till she could find another damn way out.

            “Damn you, Cajun,” she muttered under her breath, pinching out a single singed lock of hair.  The truth was, she knew he wanted this – her, all mad and unfocused.  So she bit down on her irritation, called out in a cooing tone:

            “Remy?  Where are yah, sugah?  Why dontcha come out t’ play, darlin’?”

            She heard it then.  The light _clatter clatter_ of boot steps on the escalator to her left, the slap of his feet as he hit the bottom and then—

            Silence.

            _Leadin’ me on a song and dance are yah, Cajun?  Yah know better than to think Ah’ d fall for this.  So what is it you_ really _want, sugah…?_

            And more to the point, why was she bothering to walk into whatever funhouse he’d set up for her?

            _Irene_ , she answered herself breathlessly in her own mind.   _Irene told me to trust him.  Irene told me he’s the only one who would_ help…

            And maybe that was exactly what he was doing.

            Keeping her down here, keeping her _safe_.  Protecting her from certain death up topside.

            It _had_ to be.

            He _had_ to have known this was going to go down, and now he was trying to keep her out of it, even though he knew she wouldn’t like it.

            And much as she appreciated his _concern_ , there was no way she was leaving Logan and the others in the lurch.

            She scanned the ticket hall quickly, seeing no evidence of an exit.

            _Damn_.

            But there had to be one _somewhere_.  Maybe a maintenance staircase or _something_ …

            She slid down the escalator banister, and when she hit the bottom she scoped out the circular hallway there.  Nothing.  Surprise, surprise.  Buckets and tools and slabs of cladding, bare columns, plastered and white-washed and awaiting decoration.  The walls had only just been rid of their covering of vintage advertising; the ceiling was nothing more than a skeleton of metal beams and bars.

            She went to the nearest door and rattled the handle.  Locked.  She didn’t even think about it.  She channelled his power, charged the lock and _BAM!_ – the door swung open noisily with the blast.  There was nothing inside but an old office stuffed with more building materials.  No exit.  No escape.

            She cursed.

            And that’s when she heard his footsteps _pitter-pattering_ somewhere not too far behind her.

            Rogue swung round, infuriated.

            Again – nothing.

            “Ah’m here, Cajun!” she called out in a voice less tempered with the sweetness it had borne before. “So why don’t you come out and tell me straight what it is you want?”

            Her voice echoed, then faded.

            _It’s a waste of time, girl.  He’s distractin’ you, tryin’ to get you away from the others…_

            She was just about to turn and leave when she caught it out of the corner of her eye; the tail of his coat, disappearing behind a column halfway down the corridor.  He’d thrown her a bone, and both of them had known she was that pissed she’d pounce on it.  She sprinted down the passageway after him, and when she rounded the corner of the pillar she wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t there.

            “Dontcha think you’re too old t’ be playin’ games now, swamp rat?” she called out irately, and it was just as she had finished saying it that a charged playing card sailed past her, right towards the column she stood by.  She swung out of the way as the missile connected with the concrete, just managing to miss the brunt of the explosion as she whirled round the other side of the pillar and hunkered down with her arms shielding her ears and face.

            _KA-BOOM!_

            The column spewed its innards onto the floor with a deafening _crash!_

            Rogue stood, her back still pressed against the remnants of the pillar. 

            “Now that was just half-assed, Cajun!” she yelled mockingly, and she heard his footsteps, nearer this time, the sarcastic lilt of his voice answering from somewhere to the right – no, left – of her:

            “It’s not like you’re tryin’ hard neither, _chere_!”

            “Ah would be if Ah knew you weren’t just playin’ games!” she hollered back, and she swung round the pillar letting out one of Rachel’s psychic bolts as she did so, and hit – nothing.

            _Damn!_

            Where _was_ he…?

            “No games, _chere_ ,” his voice echoed in answer, this time from down another corridor that branched out to her right.

            All right.  No games.  So why this round of hide-and-seek?

            She followed his voice, through a short, grimy corridor and into another hall which had once been for interchanges.  Nothing here had been touched.  Everything was grey and peeling and smelled of mould and decay.  At some point it seemed to have served as a storeroom.  Random bits and pieces were littered here and there, ladders, paint buckets, broken electronics, cables, wires, the odd wrecked door or two, discarded elevator parts…

            And there it was.  A stairwell off to the side, marked ‘STAIRS TO EXIT’.

            Like a bolt she went for it; and just as she was within a couple of metres of her escape route he was suddenly right there behind her, grasping her by the shoulders, twisting her aside, throwing her to the ground in a single fluid movement.  Her back hit the cold slab floor with such force that the wind was momentarily knocked out of her, and she coughed, gasped, spluttered, rolled onto her knees with her eyes and lungs burning and… And this was _it_.  She didn’t care whether he was trying to protect her or not.  She was _pissed._   For _real_.

            She’d barely got her breath back when his boots stepped into view beside her, and she didn’t waste a moment; she lunged at his legs from her position on the floor, and it was the _last_ thing he’d expected.

            He slammed to the floor beside her with an ‘ _oof!’_ and she didn’t bother hanging around to give him an extra piece of her mind; she got to her feet and ran for the stairwell.

            And he was almost on top of her again in a trice, grasping the back of her jacket and spinning her round to face him.  She guessed he’d figured she’d be too off-balance to respond, but he’d misjudged her, underestimated the mounting level of her rage.  As his arm came in to grab her again she twisted out of the way of his fist just in time, letting him grasp thin air, seizing his outstretched arm and levering the whole weight of him over her shoulder, tossing him into a pile of old, dismantled billboards nearby.  He was up again like a jack-rabbit, jumping onto his feet and whirling away in the resulting cloud of dust, behind another broken pillar and — gone.

            She huffed angrily, coasted round the pillar from the other side, finding him _not there_ , syncing in with his psyche briefly, following his next likely trajectory towards a row of nearby vintage vending machines.  Before she even rounded the corner she was striking out with her leg, and her boot hit the nearest machine with a _clunk_ , sending it tumbling out the way and revealing him to her just as he was about to scamper away again.

            “So what is this about, Remy?!” she railed furiously, advancing on him step by step as he backed away from her slowly, cautiously. “You bringin’ me down here to keep me away from the others?!  From Sinister?!”

            “ _Maybe_ ,” he answered breathlessly, his eyes on hers, unwavering.  Serious.  Even earnest.  Like he was worried that if he let her out his sight for even a moment she might disappear into thin air.  And she was wasting time down here with him, but she was too damn furious with his idiotic attempt at _protecting_ her not to try to whup him up the side of his head for it.

He seemed to sense just how mad he’d made her.

Just when he’d almost run out of room he ducked between two vending machines out of sight, and—  

            “Just. Stand. _Still!_ ” she grunted, heaving the nearest machine to the ground with Wolverine’s raw strength.  Just as it hit the ground she saw his coat tail whip round the corner; leaping like a gazelle, she made a grab for it and – _bingo_!  She had it.  The rage was so palpable inside her that she was almost surprised to find that, no sooner had she caught it than she had charged the goddamn thing.

            _Shiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!_

            There was a screeching whine as the coat glowed brighter and brighter, as he stripped it off like she’d never seen him discard an item of clothing before… and just as the whine of the charge had reached an unbearable fever pitch he threw the coat up in the air above their heads. 

            In _her_ direction.

 

            It exploded only a few metres above her head, and whilst she knew she was never in any danger of being harmed by the detonation, the force of the blast was enough to slam her right onto her backside as a snowstorm of singed and shredded leather fluttered like burnt confetti around her.

            She spluttered, gasping for breath, tasting motor oil on her tongue as one boot and then another stepped in either side of her body, and somewhere right above her he said:

            “You make it so damn _easy_ , Rogue.”

            She scooted backwards, trying to prop herself up on her elbows, but he lifted a foot and planted it squarely on her chest, bringing her down again.

            “Uh-uh, _chere_ , I don’t t’ink so.  You’re stayin’ right here.”

            His boot disappeared, and the next moment his face was in view, all sensuous lips and glowing red eyes, fixing her with a stare that was nevertheless coldly assessing as he saw her gaze dart this way and that, searching desperately for an escape that wasn’t there.

            “Still lookin’ for a way out, Rogue?” he mused, his breath warm on her face. “How d’you reckon I can keep you here, _chere_ , right where I need you to be?”

            And she felt the answer to his own question – the weight of his body folding over hers, pinning her down, taking her breath away…  And his face was so close to hers, his lips so near and yet so far, and she’d been here before, right here with him in a place not so very long ago…

            “Well, _chere_ ,” he cooed softly, “dis seems kinda familiar now, don’t it?”

            Too familiar.  She could barely breath with the _need_ in her…

            “If this is some ploy to get me away from the others when they need me, so help me God, Remy…”

            “Logan will be fine, _chere_ ,” he assured her, this time serious. “Don’t worry.”

            He shifted slightly, easing a leg between hers and nestling there all warm and hard, and she found her breath coming in short, sharp laboured bursts, this time with a thread of _want_ and not anger.

            “You don’t need t’ do this, Remy,” she murmured hoarsely.

            “Do what?” he murmured back, tracing her lips with his eyes.

            “ _Protect_ me.”

            His eyes flickered to hers as if unwillingly.

            “I’m a fool, Rogue,” he spoke with real passion. “I can’t trust you to take care of yourself.  If anyt’ing happened to you, I’d never be able to forgive myself if I hadn’t done everyt’ing in my power to keep you safe first.”

            No blink of an eyelid, no twitch of the mouth.  Her heart was in her throat to hear him say it as if he meant it, as if it was the _truth_.  And she just couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell if it was the truth or not. Even after the years they had spent slowly orbiting one another, learning about one another, loving one another; even after feeling certain that she could read him even at his most withdrawn and pensive… she realized she didn’t know whether or not he meant those words, or if he was just saying what he needed to cloud her judgement. It was the first moment that he had ever made her truly afraid; and it was only the memory of Irene’s words that steeled her then – the assurance that _he loves you too…_

            “Ah need to help the others,” she insisted.

            “And I need you to stay right here,” he returned. 

            They stared at one another, both at an impasse.  He wanted to protect her.  He wanted to keep her safe, the way he always had done.  Didn’t he?  If Logan knew that, he wouldn’t hate him so much.  He’d know that he was mistaken, that Remy was a _good_ man…

            “Come back to us, Remy,” she whispered, her eyes clear and pleading as she tried once more to convince him. “Come back to _me_.”

            “I _am_ wit’ you, _chere_.”

            “That’s not what Ah mean, and you know it.  You shouldn’t be with Sinister, you’re not one of _them_ …”

            “Shhh,” he hushed her, leaning forwards and silencing her words with a kiss.

            And she let herself kiss him back, her arms coming up about him and holding him close, wanting nothing between them but naked skin and one more night where they could forget about everything except each other…

            And then she remembered where she was.

            She dug her nails hard into his shoulder blades and he surfaced on a hiss of mingled pain and desire as she rolled them both over; the back of his head slapped the cold tiled floor as she did so and he blinked.

            “You are some kinda fuckin’ bastard, Cajun,” she growled, pinning his wrists either side of him with an iron grip. “If you wanted to keep me outta this goddamn battle with the Marauders, you coulda gone the whole fuckin’ hog and _prevented_ it from happenin’ in the first place!”

            And despite the fact that she had him cornered he smiled – actually _smiled_ at her – with a kind of savage contempt for the naivity of her suggestion.

            “You t’ink I hold dat kinda leverage wit’ Sinny?” he rasped sarcastically. “You t’ink I give dat much of a damn about Logan and the rest of his Brady bunch?”

            “They probably think Ah’m dead right now!” she snapped acidly at him and he _laughed_.

            “Let dem t’ink it, _chere_.  I’m not done yet.  I still want you somet’ing bad… You know it, Rogue.  You’ve seen it in my memories, in my head… I can’t get enough of you…”

            He shifted his hips, ever so slightly, ever so subtly, bringing their bodies into perfect alignment, pressing her against him right _there_ ; and she gave an involuntary whimper, caught in a helpless onslaught of hormone-driven memories, lust-fuelled snapshots of the previous night.

            It took every fibre of her being to grit her teeth against it.

            “Ah ain’t come down here t’ make out with you, Cajun,” she seethed, her hands gripping his wrists so hard that she felt her knuckles burn with the strain.

            “Shame,” he threw back at her gruffly, his smile flickering enough now to let her know she was causing him pain. “I kinda like it when you go all BDSM on me…”

            That was it.  Enough.  He was dead.  He was fucking _dead_.

            With a feline growl she went for his throat, leaving his hands free for a split second she would end up regretting.  Before she could even get a grip on him he’d whipped his arms out and slapped her hands away, slamming his palms into her shoulders and twisting her right back over onto her back with a heavy “ _Whoof!_ ”

            And she could’ve wriggled her way out in a jiffy, if his thighs weren’t damn well locked round her hips with his business pressed right up against her like this was some screwed up kind of foreplay.

            “Ah am so _done_ with this, Remy LeBeau,” she fumed on a breath that nevertheless gave away just what he did to her. “If yah think this is what Ah want, you are sorely mistaken.  Ah’m gonna ask you nice now – _let me go_.”

            “Funny,” he muttered huskily. “Dat wasn’t what you were sayin’ last night…”

            She glared up at him like a thunder cloud, trying to ignore the fact that the muscle in her thigh was spasming painfully from her attempt to stay as rigid and unyielding against him as she possibly could. “Last night is the _only_ reason Ah ain’t kickin’ your fuckin’ ass right now,” she snarled.

            And a soundless laugh rumbled in his chest.

            “I kinda figured, _chere_ ,” he muttered, dipping her face within an inch of hers. “But I ain’t gonna letcha get back up topside and get yourself fuckin’ killed.  And I’d rather not beat you t’ a pulp to _keep_ you here.  So how else you t’ink I’m gonna distract you, huh?”

            He didn’t need to wait for her to reply; the answer was right there before them without any need for words.

He kissed her again, this time torturously slow, his body moving against hers; and it was too much, she couldn’t help it – her muscles gave way and she surrendered on a quivering moan, his mouth coming right up over the sound and catching it effortlessly on his tongue and… …

            Time ceased to exist.

            She barely realised how it happened, but somehow her legs were winding round him and they were rocking against their kiss, neither one wanting to break away first and _end this_ …

            _BOOOOOOOOOOOM!_

            The sound was like thunder rolling somewhere overhead, louder than the explosions that had woken them that morning; the entire room shook, the old fixtures rattled; the lights flickered out for a split second and then back on.

            Rogue ripped her mouth from Remy’s and shoved him aside, panting breathlessly.

            “What the —?”

            _BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!_

            This time it was louder, and the room rumbled ominously; plaster and dust sprinkled from the ceiling in pockets, as if a bomb had landed right above their heads.  In a moment Rogue had scrambled to her feet, the heated haze of lust switching in a moment to the cold tidal wave of dread.

            _Sentinels_.

            It was their footsteps lumbering out topside, carrying them into their endless battle with the mutants, a war that had been waged for years now and would never finish.  Rogue’s gaze followed the trail of crumbling plaster as it fell from the ceiling, right across the entire length of the room.

            “ _Sentinels_ ,” she hissed. “We haveta help the others!”

            She was about to run when Remy caught her hand, halting her.

            “No, Rogue!”

            She shook off his grip, turning to him with sudden frustration as he got to his feet beside her.

            “Are yah crazy, Remy?  They _need_ us up there!”

            “And I need you.” He grasped her upper arm, forced her to face him. “Don’t go, Rogue.”

            She saw it in his eyes.  Worry… desperation.  And something more.  Something he wasn’t telling her…

            “What is it, Remy?” she whispered, the coldness in her dropping another degree. “What have you done?”

            “Not’ing,” he replied, pulling her in close again; but she didn’t believe him.

            “ _You_ did this…” she accused him, but he shook his head, said with conviction; “ _Non_.”

            She looked up into his eyes, those beautiful eyes, and it was still there, the concern and the alarm in them, a look he was trying to hide but couldn’t, not from _her_ …

            “Ah don’t believe you really know _which_ side of the fence you’re on, do you Remy,” she murmured, and he looked right back at her, answered with certainty:

            “I know _exactly_ whose side I’m on, Anna.”

            His gaze was charged; she opened her mouth to reply, but as she did so the sound of footsteps clapped on the bare stone floor behind her, and she swung round, expecting anyone but the one person she now saw, advancing towards the two of them, swathed all in black…

            _Sinister_.

            And the past few minutes seemed to fall neatly and horribly into place.

            “Well done, LeBeau,” he congratulated his young protégé with that cold, cultured voice, a thin breeze of icy air. “I would have allowed you your fun, but as you can see, things have become a little… _inconvenient_ outside.”

            Rogue swallowed it.  The betrayal.  The carefully crafted logic of it, neat blocks all laid out side by side, step by step, like a child’s toy edifice.  She looked back over her shoulder at Remy.  His expression imparted nothing.

            “So this is your way of ‘protecting’ me, Remy?” she asked him bitterly, but he made no reply, his mouth a thin, straight line.  Sinister chuckled softly.

            “Ah, come now, my dear, you shouldn’t blame him,” he spoke up mockingly. “After all, the only thing Mr. LeBeau here knows how to protect is an investment.  And look at it this way.  You’re much safer down here with us than you are up there.”

            As if on cue the room rocked under the slow, thundering _booooom_ of the Sentinels overhead; a sheet of plaster shook loose from the ceiling, crashed onto the ground between them.  On instinct Rogue made a move towards the exit, needing to be _up there_ with the others; but Remy grasped her by her utility belt, and the next moment she felt the thrumming wisp of energy as he charged the material between his exposed fingers.  He got what he wanted.  She froze in place.

            “You wouldn’t _dare_ …” she shot at him, but he shook his head, told her soberly; “You’re stayin’ here, _chere_.  Sorry.  I don’t wanna hurt you, but I will if I have to.  It’s better for us both if you just play along and don’t try anyt’ing.”

            “Yes, stay, play along,” Sinister intoned mellifluously, finally moving to cross the space between them. “Do as he says, and you won’t be harmed, Rogue.  And I’d rather you _weren’t_ harmed, despite what you may think.”

            Lies.  She knew what it was he did.  All those years, tearing mutants apart, trying to find his so-called _homo superior_ , decades and decades of searching had remained, for him, unchanged.

            “What do you want from me?” she asked, feeling the charge on her belt reverberate through her abdomen, not daring to make a move lest she set it off.  He was within a couple of yards of her now.  The deathly pallor of his face made his features more sunken and frightening than she’d ever remembered.

            “What do you think?” he returned in a voice like velvet. “I want only _you_ , my dear.”

            “So you can experiment on me?” she threw back with disdain, but he only laughed.

            “Experiment?  No, merely to _collect_ you, my dear.  I am, after all, a collector.  Of mutants.”

            “That’s not what Ah remember,” she retorted, low, accusatory. “Ah saw them, y’know.  Years back, when Ah was clearin’ out one of your labs with the X-Men… All those people you were usin’ as test subjects… _They_ were mutants, weren’t they.  At least, some of them _used_ to be.  The rest were just body parts in jars…  Yeah, you’re a collector all right.  Of a sick, twisted, _perverse_ freak show!”

            She’d thought the righteous indignation in her voice would rile him, but the laugh he replied with was loud, raucous, filling the hall with the harshness of its echo.

            “ _Them?!_ ” he exclaimed incredulously, as if he couldn’t quite believe her words. “ _They_ were not worthy to be a part of my collection!  They were mere worms, lab rats, undeserving of the X-gene that they had been blessed with.  No!  The _X-Men_ were _worthy_ additions to my collection.  Sadly, most of them were eliminated forever by those simpering government fools, but enough remained in order for me to carry out my grand project.  Oh, I collected a great many thanks to our _friend_ here –” and he shot an appreciative glance in Remy’s direction, “yet, unfortunately, I lost the _one prize_ that I had set my sights on for so long.”

            “Rachel Summers,” Rogue cut in on gritted teeth, and he nodded.

            “Rachel Summers.  The pinnacle of evolution.  In her genes I would find the finest expression of _homo superior_ possible.  She was to have been the gem in my collection.” There was a light in his cold, red eyes, burning with a maniacal brightness that dimmed suddenly as he looked on her with a sneer of disdain. “Due to unforeseen circumstances, she slipped through my grasp.  No thanks, in small part, to the two of _you_.”  Again, he passed Remy a penetrating glance and mused after a moment: “It seems I miscalculated.  It seems I did not factor in the _effect_ you would have on one another.”

            “How could you?” she levelled at him with a certain savageness to the words. “What the hell would _you_ know about—”

            “What?  _Love?”_ He said the word with scientific curiosity, nothing more, nothing less. “I know something of it.  The pull it has.  Delicious and fleeting temptation.  It is transitory.  A hindrance, an inconvenience, to great work.  I abandoned it long ago.” He stroked his chin as if lost in some inner reminiscence before continuing: “But yes.  You were – _are_ – still young.  It takes time – years, decades – to overcome the inclinations and limitations of the flesh.”

            “Flesh has nothin’ t’ do with it,” she told him, but a small smile curved his pale lips as if in pity at her naïveté.

            “I think you know it does.”

            She was tired of this.  This dancing.  It was time to end it.  She swivelled her head slightly, shot a glance at Remy, said: “Let me go, Remy.  Ah ain’t gonna run.”

            He didn’t second guess her.  In the blink of an eye, the charge was gone.  Rogue relaxed, finally easing out a deep breath, rubbing her sore abdomen.  She looked up at Essex, who had watched their exchange with interest.  She could almost see him making field notes somewhere in the back of that sick mind of his.

            “You still trust him?  Despite the fact that he has handed you over to me?” He stroked his chin again, grinning. “Interesting.”

            “Not really,” she replied disinterestedly.  The room rumbled again and more plaster crashed to the floor to their left and to their right.  If they stayed here much longer, they’d probably get crushed.  She could feel Remy was thinking the same thing.  Sinister, however, seemed unconcerned.

            “Why do you need me?” she asked him, stalling for time whilst she figured out an exit strategy. “Ah ain’t no Rachel…”

            “No,” Essex returned. “Not by any means.  But you’re an X-Man.  And you are… shall we say – _special_.”

            It was nothing new to her.  She didn’t like the way people thought she was ‘special’.  First Mystique and Irene, and now him.  Being ‘special’ was not a good thing.

            “And Remy?” she couldn’t help questioning. “What about him?”

            Essex’s eyes narrowed.

            “Yes.  He is special too.  Very special indeed.”

            She was measuring it.  The distance between them.

            “In what way?”

            And biding her time, waiting…

            “What does it matter to you?”

            And there it was again, a faraway rumble, dust filtering to the floor from more pockets that had opened in the ceiling right overhead…

            “Does he know why he’s special?  Is that why he’s still workin’ for you?”

            And Remy spoke then, said; “Rogue…”

            And _BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!_

            A slat of plaster right above them worked loose and she took the moment in her hands, sprang forward and bowled right into Sinister, surprised to find that he was more _solid_ than she’d thought; that, whilst he staggered backward at the weight of her, she hadn’t brought him down as she’d thought she would…

            But there was no time to re-evaluate, it was either do or die, and as the debris smacked into the ground with an almighty _CRASH_ behind her, she reached out with her bare hand, grasped at Essex’s white dead face and _pulled_ …

            But there was no tsunami, no influx of memories flooding in over her.

            Instead it was the cold hand of darkness, dragging her in and pulling her under.

 

*          *          *          *          *

-END OF PART ONE-


	8. Leech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue finally learns Sinister’s intentions, and learns far more about her powers and the Black Womb project than she’d bargained for.

##  **PART TWO :** **SINISTER**

            A moment of confusion followed; half the ceiling seemed to collapse, and in the ensuing dust cloud Remy lost sight of both Rogue and Essex.  A few seconds later the dust had settled, and he saw Rogue lying, crumpled, at Sinister’s feet.

            “What happened?” he asked, his voice taut, controlled.  Essex looked up at him calmly.

            “She tried to absorb me,” he explained in a tone that seemed to suggest great approval at the gall of the woman before him. “It seems her attempt was unsuccessful.”

            Remy stepped forward and knelt beside Rogue’s prone form, rolled her over onto her back.  He checked her breathing, her pulse.  He pressed his lips together.  She was alive.

            “Why?” he asked, absently brushing a lock of white hair from her face.

            “I’m not sure,” Essex replied in a tone that told Remy his scientific curiosity had been piqued. “But it is just as well, I think, that it _wasn’t_ successful.”

            Remy said nothing.  Another roll of thunder sounded on the surface as the Sentinels continued their work.  He wondered, with a detached curiosity Essex would have applauded, if any of his comrades up above – on both sides of the fence – were injured or dead.  The truth was, he was distracted.  Other things were foremost in his mind.

            “You were late,” Essex spoke accusingly. “The others had to start without you.”

            “Sorry,” Remy replied in a tone that said he was far from it. “Was busy last night.  Besides, we got what we wanted, neh?”

            Essex merely grunted his assent.  His countenance showed that he was less than impressed; but whatever reproach he would have made on that score was interrupted by another explosion above ground more violent than the last.

            “We should leave,” Remy suggested wryly. “Your goons ain’t gonna be able to hold dose Sentinels off forever.  Neither will Wolverine.”

            “Hmph.  I’m sure he’ll try.  Perhaps he will even succeed.  But he is of no use to me.  I have read his files.  _Weapon X_.  Such primitive experiments.  A waste of what might have been a useful mutation.”

            Remy made no comment.  He lifted Rogue into his arms gently.  Even Essex could see it – the tenderness with which he held her, an instinctive reaction, as one would have holding a fragile glass bird.

            “Are you quite certain you know whose side you’re on, boy?” he queried sharply.

            Remy’s reply was level.

            “Of course.  I give Rogue back to you, you give me back what’s mine.  Seems like a fair trade, neh?”

            “You needn’t worry,” Essex returned flippantly. “She’ll be taken good care of.  And perhaps I may even be able to indulge your _fascination_ with this woman.  You _may_ both have your uses yet.”

            And he chuckled ominously as he turned to leave with Remy following silently behind him.

 

*

 

            Rogue lay out on the hospital bed, clothed only in a flimsy paper gown, her pale skin bathed in the bluish glow of the laboratory lights.  She hadn’t woken since her absorption of Sinister had backfired.  He still wanted to know how it had happened.  Or even _what_ had happened.  He wondered if an absorption had actually taken place between them, and what – if anything – she had seen.

            Remy grimaced.

            He wasn’t sure he would like to have Sinister lurking somewhere in the back of his mind.

            He stood by the bed and watched her.

            Rogue, still so defiant, still so resolute.  Clinging obstinately to life with all the sheer force of will inside her.  Even now, even after whatever it was that had happened to her, she was fighting.  All the machines she was hooked up to told him so.  Each and every one of her vital signs was strong, their stubborn onward march recorded moment by moment on the monitor above her head.  Angry and impetuous – nothing short of tenacious.  He had to admire it in her.  He certainly knew Essex did.  It was, of course, part of the reason that she was here at all.

            Remy reached out, gently ran his fingers over the curved length of her collarbone.  Skin the texture and colour of ivory.  As soft as lily petals.  Such an iron will in a body so soft and fragile and beautiful.  He touched the butterfly pendant that she still wore round her neck.  There was another chip in it.  He smoothed his finger over it, tried to wipe it out.

            The lab door suddenly whipped open behind him and he heard the swish of Sinister’s coat tails as he entered the room.

            “And how is our patient?” Essex’s velvet voice inquired as he breezed past efficiently.  Remy drew back his hand and stared at the monitor above.

            “Fine.  Better den fine.”

            “Hm.” Essex stopped on the other side of Rogue’s bed, followed Remy’s gaze up to the monitors. “Interesting.  Despite the psychic backlash she received, her brain functions do not appear to have been affected at all.” He looked down on his quarry with admiration undisguised on his face. “She is indeed formidable.”

            Remy looked disinterested.  None of this was anything he had not known before.

            “So any idea why she couldn’t absorb you?” he asked instead, turning away and moving to the computer terminals at the side of the room.  It was almost time for Rogue’s next shot.  The computers had been set up to administer to her every hour or so, just to keep her asleep.  She’d almost woken up several times before Essex had fine-tuned the dosage.  Now she was pretty much dead to the world.

            “More than likely, it is down to the fact that my genetic template has been so… altered,” Sinister replied from the bed side, tapping away at the small interface there. “A mere theory, as yet, but something I will test to the full once she is more stable.  If such is the case, it will be an avenue worth exploring.”

            Whatever this meant, Remy was not entirely certain; but he was used now to most of Essex’s musings not making much sense.  He turned away from the computer screens, back to Rogue.  Sinister was looking down on her intently.

            “What?” Remy asked casually, moving forward to stand once more by her bedside.  Sinister did not look up.

            “I will admit,” he began with a small smile, “she is an … _intriguing_ specimen.  One might almost see where your fascination with her lies, LeBeau.”

            Remy shrugged.

            “Been ‘fascinated’ wit’ a lotta women in my time…” he commented flippantly.

            “Not quite like this one, though,” Essex grimaced, and Remy shrugged again.

            “She scratches an itch.  She’s good at it too.”

            “Your ‘itches’ hardly interest me, LeBeau,” Essex scowled, looking back at the monitors.  There was a soft, hissing noise as the IV drip in Rogue’s arm automatically administered the programmed drugs into her system. “It is unfortunate that you have been allowed to indulge this weakness.  However,” and he began tapping on the small control panel before him again, “it is impossible to deny that the combining of your genetic material has the potential to produce some truly… _scintillating_ results…”

            “Sounds like an interestin’ experiment,” Remy quipped wryly. “When can we start?”

            Sinister raised a withering eyebrow in his direction.

            “In this case the usual form of reproduction would be highly inefficient.  Left to its own devices, nature is sluggish and wasteful.  Evolution is a process that takes millennia, and nature is predisposed to manifest myriad random mutations before it settles on a finished product that is of any use at all.  No,” and he looked back to the control panel once more, his expression disapproving, “the only way to ensure a completely _successful_ outcome would be through the systematic combining of the subjects’ genetic material in a sterile environment, where the effects of random chance may be kept to an absolute minimum.”

            “Sounds like a mood killer,” Remy noted dryly.

            “What it is, LeBeau, is logic.  And nature has less of it than you might think.”

            “Dat’s for sure,” Remy muttered half to himself. “T’ink she was playin’ a joke when she made de mutant race, neh?”

            Essex glanced at him then.  Cold.  Chilling.

            “On the contrary,” he spoke icily, “it is my belief that _homo superior_ is evidence of nature _finally_ beginning to make use of logic.  _You_ are the way in which the human species was always _supposed_ to be.  For millennia now we have had to make use of crude tools in order to sustain our continued survival upon this planet.  As organisms we are one of the most inefficient.  _Homo superior_ , on the other hand, possesses _useful_ gifts that aid the advancement of the human race.  Finally, nature is sorting the wheat from the chaff, the strong from the weak.  That does not mean to say,” he continued, turning back to his work, “that nature has not propagated some genetic dead-ends in its quest for perfection.  Take, for example, those creatures whose powers are of little practical use, or whose mutation is naught but a mere deformation.  This is nature exposing its predisposition towards haphazard and arbitrary manifestations in service of evolution’s onward march.  But mutants such as Jean Grey, as Scott and Rachel Summers… they are examples of nature having reached the ultimate expression of perfection of its own volition.  Such a shame they are now all lost to me.”

            Remy looked down at Rogue, the black crescent of her eyelashes sweeping down towards her pale cheeks, her lips slightly parted as though about to speak.

            “And Rogue?” he murmured.

            “Rogue?” Sinister’s smile was both gleeful and malevolent. “Rogue, one might say, is the rarest of breeds.  Nature at its most simple and elegant.  Truly a marvel of creation.  But she is … _imperfect_.  In order to achieve her full potential, she will need a little help… from me.”

            His laughter was soft, hiding a wealth of macabre secrets.  He put the control panel on standby and moved towards the door.

            “Inform me if there are any changes, LeBeau,” he ordered as the door slid open at his approach. “Tomorrow we will wake her, and the grand experiment will begin.”

            And he left, leaving Remy staring down at Rogue’s inert form lying, still and white, upon the bed.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            Rogue opened her eyes to a crystalline light, to the sound of water lapping lightly upon a shallow shore.

            She was back by the lake, lying under the cedar tree.  Everything was calm, peaceful.  Up on the hill, the mansion stood solid and comforting.  She wondered why she’d never gone in there.  Somehow, it had never seemed right to do so.

            “Thank God,” Remy’s voice said above her. “You’re awake.”

            She swivelled her head to her left, saw him sitting there beside her.  There was relief in his expression.

            “Remy?” she muttered, confused. “Where…?  How…?”

            She sat up slowly, realising after a moment that she was inside her own mind, and that he was merely a psyche.  Why she had retreated here was another matter entirely.  She couldn’t remember much about what had happened in the outside world.  She recalled going to attack Sinister, to absorb him and take him out of the game, and then – _blackness_.

            “What happened?” she asked out loud.

            “You tried to absorb Sinister,” Remy explained calmly. “It didn’t work.  Seems like you got some kinda psychic backlash – you ended up in here.”

            “A defence mechanism?” she suggested, more to herself than to him.

            “Mebbe,” he shrugged.

            She stood on wobbly feet, before realising that there were no physical boundaries, no nerves or muscles or _balancing_ in this place; he stood with her.  He said nothing, waiting for her to acclimate, waiting for her to speak first.

            “Why couldn’t Ah absorb Sinister?” she finally questioned.  Again, he shrugged.

            “Beats me.”

            “Don’t you have _any_ idea why?”

            “ _Non_.” He seemed to think about it a moment, before continuing: “Truth is though, I don’t think he’s entirely human.  Not like you or me.  Maybe you can’t absorb somet’ing dat ain’t human.”

            “And that’s all you can come up with?”

            “It’s a theory, _chere_ ,” he replied, looking a little offended. “De best I could come up wit’, leastways.”

            Rogue looked away, taking in the scenery surrounding her.  Tranquillity reigned, all order and no chaos.  Not a thing out of place.  She wished the _real_ Remy was here – she felt certain that his ‘theory’ had improved over the past year or so.

            “Remy,” she spoke urgently, “Ah need your help.”

            “Anytime, _p’tit_ ,” he answered softly. “You know dat.”

            “You betrayed me to Sinister,” she explained, shivering at the memory. “Ah’m pretty sure he has me right now.  Ah need t’ know what he needs me for, Remy.  Ah need to have an edge when Ah wake up.”

            Surprise crossed his face; then anger in quick succession.  His mouth went hard.

            “Dat’s impossible, _chere_ ,” he told her with self-assured certainty. “I wouldn’t betray you, and especially not to Sinister.”

            “But you _did_ , Remy,” she returned as gently as she could. “Ah was there…”

            “ _Non_ ,” he insisted heatedly. “I wouldn’t.  Not unless it was all part of some bigger plan, some bigger picture…” He shook his head, unconvinced.  She didn’t have the time or inclination to argue with him.  Whatever Gambit’s true motivation, she was in Sinister’s hands right now.  She needed to know what this was all about.

            “Why would Sinister want _me_?” she asked him quickly, changing the subject.  He looked at her incredulously.

            “Why?  Because you’re an X-Man, Rogue.”

            “So why not any other X-Man?  And why did he get _you_ to turn me over to him?”

            A look crossed his face, one he couldn’t hide from her.

            “ _Remy_ …”

            “Rogue…”

            “Remy, please, you have to tell me what you know!”

            He ran a hand through his hair, shifted his feet awkwardly.  His reluctance was palpable.

            “Way back when I first infiltrated de mansion,” he began slowly, uncertainly, as if any word he spoke might shoot bullets in her, “ _you_ were one of de X-Men Sinister specifically wanted.”

            She stared at him.  And there was shame in his face, clear as daylight.

            “Ah don’t understand,” she whispered. “He wanted _me_?  For all that time?”

            He nodded.

            “Yes.  Rachel Summers.  And you.  You were the ones he asked for.” He looked away, at the lake, at the softly lapping water. “You don’t know how it felt, _chere_ , dat first moment I laid eyes on you.  Thinkin’ you were de most beautiful thing in de world, and _knowin’_ dat it was my job to give you to dat monster.  If I coulda touched you, if I coulda tasted you and made myself believe you were just another woman, just another lay, maybe I coulda convinced myself dat I could give you up to him.  But I couldn’t.  I couldn’t get you out from under my skin.  And de longer I stayed de harder it got to give you up.”

            His words were so gentle, so earnest, that she couldn’t be angry at him.

            “ _Would_ you have?” she asked him quietly.

            “ _Non_.  I don’t know.” He looked back at her gravely. “If dere was a way not to, I woulda found it…”

            And she had to believe that – she had no other choice, not unless she wanted to give up everything she had fought for thus far.  She had only the _hope_ that he would never have betrayed her, even if the present circumstances told her otherwise.

            “Didn’t he tell you why he wanted me?” she questioned him again.

            “ _Non_.” He shook his head. “I never knew.  He never explained why.  I didn’t question him.  I never did.”

            And did the same hold true now, she wondered?

            She turned away, knowing she would find no more answers here.

            “If he’s wanted me for this long then it has to be something important.” She paused.  There was only one thing that could possibly make her stand out from the rest of the X-Men at that mansion. “The Black Womb project,” she muttered.

            “ _Quoi?_ ” he spoke behind her.

            “It’s… it’s nothin’,” she replied wearily.  She had forgotten that there was so much he didn’t know, so much he had missed.  It made her… sad.  Sad to realise that, comforting though his presence was to her, this Remy could never be a replacement for the one on the outside.  He could never possess the history the two of them had shared in the long, torrid months since she had first absorbed him.

            She took a step forward; that clouded door was already there in front of her, awaiting her command.

            “Ah haveta go,” she told him with real regret.  He sensed it.

            “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

            “It’s okay.  You couldn’t’ve helped me.”

            “ _Non_ , not about dat.” And his voice dropped a notch. “I’m sorry dat I wasn’t honest wit’ you back den, about why I was at de mansion in de first place.  I wish I had been.  Maybe den we would’ve worked dis through together.”

            “Or maybe Ah just woulda ended up hatin’ your guts, sugah,” she said, pressing a hand against that door. “Everythin’ happens for a reason.  Havin’ twenty-twenty vision helps.  And right now, if Ah’m gonna be able to get through this, twenty-twenty vision is exactly what Ah need.”

 

*

 

            For the first time, Irene’s room was unlocked.

            Rogue pushed open the door and let herself inside.  It was exactly as it had been before.  That pokey little room with dusty Victorian furnishings and papers scattered all over the floor.  Irene sat on the edge of the antique leather couch, mahogany cane in hand, waiting, as she always seemed to.

            “No more hide-and-seek?” Rogue greeted her sarcastically before she could get a word in. “Does this mean Ah’m gonna get some straight answers from you for once?”

            Irene didn’t even blink.

            “Time is non-linear.  Getting straight answers from it is well-nigh impossible.”

            Rogue snorted.

            “Enough with riddles, Irenie.  You’ve seen this, haven’t you?  You know exactly what happens.  So far you’ve been sending me these crazy dreams about the future, tryin’ to help me out.  Well, now Ah actually _need_ some help.  Ah need to know what Sinister wants me for.”

            “Knowing that won’t help you now,” Irene answered calmly.

            “And what makes _you_ get to decide what helps me or not?” Rogue cried, her temper flaring. “Ah’m beginnin’ to think you don’t _really_ want to help me at all!  That all these riddles and all these visions are just tricks to make me do things _wrong_.  Maybe _you’re_ the enemy, not Sinister!”

            A frown touched the old lady’s lips.

            “You really believe that, Rogue?”

            She hesitated, caught between exploding in righteous indignation and throwing herself on the floor in utter exhaustion.

            “Ah don’t know!” she burst out at last. “All Ah know is that Essex has me and Remy’s in on it, and that the only thing that connects all the dots is the Black Womb project!  Was Ah an unfinished experiment or somethin’?”

            Irene’s face was expressionless.

            “Given the fact that the facility was destroyed half way through the project, it is quite probable that you are.”

            “And is that all Ah’m gonna get from you?!” Rogue railed at her. “When Ah’m at the mercy of that monster?!” She turned back to the door, almost shaking with rage. “Ah _knew_ this was a waste of time!”

            She was just about to throw open the door and leave when Irene stopped her.

            “I did not bring you here, Rogue, to _waste_ Time.  Listen to my advice, dear daughter; and for all our sakes, please heed it.  Whatever Essex does to you, _let_ him do it.  Do not fight him.  Promise me this.”

            She couldn’t believe it.

            “So you _want_ him to screw with me while Ah sit back and do nothin’?!” she shrieked, rounding on the shade of her foster mother. “ _That’s_ your advice?!”

            “Yes.” Irene’s tone was still completely impassive. “You may take it or leave it, of course, but I beseech you to do the former.  Listen to what Essex has to do, let him do what he must.  Wait for your moment.  It will come.”

            “And how will Ah _know_?!”

            “You cannot fail to know,” came the staunch reply. “Now go, Rogue.  Go back to the light.”

 

*

 

            And she did. 

            It stung at first, making her eyes burn, making her groan and twist her face away from it.

            “She’s awake,” a guttural female voice spoke somewhere above her.  Whoever she spoke to said nothing but grunted in reply.

            Rogue rocked gently in the ensuing silence.  She realised that she was moving, strapped to a gurney, travelling down a brightly lit corridor; the air was sterile and frigid, and the only thing keeping the chill out was a thin paper gown.  Colder still was the ring of steel about her neck.  A power disruptor.  Had she been able to access her powers anyway, she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to use them effectively – her head felt dense, sluggish.  She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep, but she felt certain that most of it had been drug-induced, the after-effects of which she was feeling now.

            The gurney jolted to a stop, and for the first time two faces came into view – Arclight and Harpoon.  It’d been years since she’d last been in their presence, but their faces were ones she’d never forgotten.

            “Damn,” the woman spoke above her. “And here I was thinking she’d be out for the duration.”

            “This one is strong,” Harpoon returned in his soft, grave accent. “She fights even when she sleeps.”

            “Well, she’d better not fight when we get her out of this,” the woman retorted roughly.  There was the sound of a door cranking open.  Rogue lay still, listening, waiting.  Irene’s warning had not been lost on her.

            _Whatever Essex does to you, let him do it.  Do not fight him.  Promise me this._

It wasn’t what her nature told her to do, but considering the circumstances, she didn’t have much of a choice.

            The door had opened.  A moment later, the gurney was moving again – Rogue felt the darkness of whatever room they were wheeling her into swallow her up; the air here was cool, frigid.  Her flesh goosepimpled as the darkness grew and she finally came to a stop.  There was a pause before she felt her captors loosen the straps at her ankles and wrists.  When they were undone Arclight propelled her roughly forward into a sitting position.

            “Come on, princess,” she lilted mockingly. “Time to get up.  The boss wants to see you.”

            They shoved her violently off the gurney, and she stumbled, only just managing to steady herself on numb, wobbly feet.  Before she’d even got a chance to acclimatise to her surroundings, they had turned and left, wheeling the trolley along with them.  The door slid shut behind them with a rumble and a clang.

            Rogue was left shivering in almost pitch blackness, wreathed in a chill silence.

            It was that silence that seemed to bring it out – all the turmoil, all the fear.  She shuddered painfully, violently, unable to stop herself – when she wrapped her arms about her trembling body she still could not stop.  She knew exactly what it was that Sinister did – the way he maimed, the way he killed.  And Remy had delivered her up to that.  _Remy_.  Her lover; her betrayer.  He had given her away without showing an inkling of regret. He had gone ahead and chosen Essex over her, and the only buffer between _that_ and her wounded heart were the threadbare assurances of Irene Adler.

            Irene and her endless riddles.

            Irene, who’d told her he _loved_ her.

            Rogue’s teeth chattered viciously.

            It wasn’t just the cold.

            She was scared.  Terrified.  Just holding it down by the skin of her teeth.

            And Irene’s riddles were her only aid in doing so.

            She stood a long moment, trying to get her bearings, trying to make out where she was.  There was a faint source of light from somewhere she couldn’t quite pinpoint, and she squinted, taking in her shadowy surroundings.  The room was huge.  Longer than it was wide, and colder than it had been out in the corridor.  To her left there were walls closed over by heavy duty metal shutters; there was no telling what lay behind them.  To her right the room led on into darkness; but she could make out all the carefully ordered clutter of a laboratory – the murky outlines of worktops covered with microtomes and tube racks, centrifuges and shake tables; row upon row of shelves holding bottled chemicals and lab mice; larger equipment pushed up against walls, machinery that she could put no name to.  Some of the machines were on, their glowing switches and flickering dashboards the source of the ambient light.

            She knew where she was.

            Sinister’s laboratory.

            A thread of fear snaked its way up from the pit of her stomach to her throat; instinctively she fingered the collar at her neck, no chinks, no weaknesses – not that she had expected any.  And not that it mattered much either.  There wasn’t much she could have done even with her powers.  She was too weak, too confused.  She had no idea of where she was, or where she could go to get out of this place.  She didn’t even know how many she was up against.

            She shuddered, curling her numb toes against the cold metal floor, her ears flooded with the impassive hum of Essex’s lab and the stertorous heaviness of her own breathing.

            And then there was the unwieldy clunking of a titanium door opening from somewhere behind her.  She swung round to face it, just as the strip lights above her buzzed noisily into life, one after another.  Her senses screamed at the brightness; she covered her eyes with the crook of her elbow, feeling the back of her retinas throb and ache.  She almost preferred the cover of darkness.

            “Ah, Rogue,” Sinister’s voice filled the cavernous room over and over in a rasping echo. “Please forgive the crudeness with which you have been manhandled here.  My faithful Marauders were not aware how _precious_ you are to me.  Rest assured, they are feeling the consequences of their mistakes at this very moment.”

            He paused; and her vision had adjusted sufficiently to the light that she felt able to remove the shield from her eyes.  Sinister was walking down the steps that led down from the upper gangway, a congratulatory look on his face.  She was not surprised to see Remy close behind him.

            “What do you want?” she asked, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice, not entirely succeeding.  Fear was only a fraction of it.  Most of it was weakness, tiredness.  There wasn’t much fight left in her.

            “What do I want?” He had reached the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped there, appraising her with cold eyes. “Why, to add you to my collection, of course.  Or, to be more precise, to add my collection to _you_.”

            He stepped forward, coming towards her, whilst Remy wandered off into the shadows somewhere.  She tried to keep her eyes on him.  To focus on the one thing that was at the centre of all of this.  On whether he was acting for Sinister, or for her, or only for himself.

            “You’re making a mistake in looking to _him_ ,” Sinister sneered, taking her chin between his cold fingers and jerking her face so that she was looking dead straight into his eyes. “ _He_ has been bought and paid for.  And so, my dear, have _you_.”

            He let go of her with a look of disdain, turning away, his movements agitated.

            “Of course, it wasn’t always like this,” he mused sardonically, half to himself. “You were _both_ _mine_ by rights – until that bitch Amanda Mueller decided to destroy my – _our_ – life’s work.  My plans were scuppered – but only for a short while, it seems.  Now, everything is as it should be.”

            “Ah don’t understand…” she stammered, and he swung round at her, piqued by her words.

            “Of course you don’t!” he spat. “The machinations of fate took you away from me, but now they have brought us back together.  You will fulfil your purpose yet.”

            The words silenced her.  Fate… purpose… Even as he said them, did he _really_ know what they meant?

            She glanced over at Remy, trying to communicate to him with her eyes.  He was leaning against a computer console with his arms crossed, watching them impassively.  Whether he intended to help her or not he wasn’t ready to divulge just yet.

            “And what _is_ my purpose?” she questioned in a low voice, looking back to Sinister. 

            He was silent for a long moment, seeming to consider what answer he should give her.  After a moment he opened his mouth, said: “Show her.”

            At the console Remy uncrossed his arms, turned slightly, and pressed a button.  At his touch the titanium-shuttered walls to her left began to grind open.  And what she saw made her hold back a sickened gasp.  Row upon row of glass tanks came into view, and in each tank – a person.  Suspended in liquid, eyes closed.  Dead or alive she couldn’t tell – though from the fact that they were hooked up to _something_ made her think they were probably alive.  That wasn’t what immediately bothered her.  What _did_ bother her was the fact that almost every single face was one she recognised.  They were X-Men.  Or, at the very least, mutants that had been affiliated with the X-Men at one point or another.

            She pivoted on her heel, turning a 360 degree angle, her lips parted in an expression of horror and dismay. 

            Here, then, was the culmination of all those years of Sinister’s work.  A carbon copy of the Nevada test facility for the Black Womb project.  The test subjects no longer children, toddlers, babies.  These were all people she had once known, all people with their own lives.

            “My collection,” Essex announced with ostentatious pride.

            He paused almost as if expecting applause.  No one gave it.  To Rogue, the world seemed to tilt slightly; she held herself tight in order to steady herself against a sudden faintness.

            “How… How _long_ …?” she whispered, seeing faces in the walls, so many faces… Sage, Empath, Multiple Man, Leech… Just a _kid_ …

            “How long?” Essex seemed amused by the question. “I don’t believe I have ever really stopped.  Amanda’s actions merely culled the greater part of one crop.  From that moment, I started to rebuild.  Some I brought back into the fold, so to speak.” He gestured to one figure floating blithely in one of the nearest pods – the sleeping form of Toad. “Others were _new_ acquisitions.”

            “ _Acquisitions?_ ”

            “Yes.  Appropriated with the help of our friend here.” He cast a sidelong glance in Remy’s direction. “And he did his job admirably.”

            “So all those years… _that’s_ what he was doing… Helping you rebuild your collection…”

            “Yes.” Essex nodded.

            “But… Ain’t Remy a part of your collection too?” she ventured.

            A small smile touched Sinister’s lips.  It said everything and nothing.

            “No.  He is unique.  As, in your own way, are _you_.” He turned away from her, paced the floor in short, agitated steps, stroking the beard at his chin with long, white fingers.  She watched him, drawing her arms about herself, trying not to look at the faces in the walls.  Trying to ignore the pull of Remy’s gaze upon her.

            “You are aware, are you, of the extent of your powers?” Essex addressed her, still pacing the floor, lost in his train of thought. “How very rare and unique you are, as _homo superior_ goes?”

            She hugged herself tighter, feeling the ominous dread that came with the realisation that, once again, what this all boiled down to was her powers.

            “Ah know it’s a curse,” she answered softly, and he stopped short, spinning round on his heel to face her with a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

            “Yes – of course you would think that.  You, who have no _conception_ of the exceptional quality of those powers you possess.” His expression was contemptuous. “Let me explain it to you plainly, so that you are able to grasp the _significance_ of your existence upon this earth.”

            He turned again, faced the wall of floating bodies, bathed in the soft, blue light that encased them.  The pallor of his skin was illuminated into something almost glacial.

            “When you were brought to me as an infant, you were one of a very few select subjects that showed Omega level potential – mutants whose powers are potentially limitless.  You were separated from the chaff and your genetic makeup was studied closely.” He paused, glowered. “Of course, it is only a rare mutant that develops its powers before the onset of puberty.  The only marker of your mutation was the lock of white hair you possessed.  It was far from clear to me exactly _what_ your powers would be, nor when or how they would manifest.  But… I had an _idea_ of the power you were capable of; and I decided, on reflection, that the best way to unlock your potential was to set a timer in your genetic code, so to speak.  Whenever your power finally manifested itself, it would manifest itself to its fullest.  Your potential would be realised in a single glorious conflagration.  You would be reborn as one of my very few chosen ones.  The very essence of _homo_ _superior_.”

            He halted, a frown touching his features as he turned back to face her.

            “But the plans I had for you and your brethren, unfortunately, did not come to pass.  As you know, the Black Womb project and the facility that housed it were destroyed.  You were stolen by Irene Adler and that harpy Raven Darkhӧlme.” He sneered with blatant and unadulterated disgust. “They took you back to a ‘normal’ life and thus ruined any chance of nurturing you for the one great achievement you had been destined for.  When your powers finally _did_ manifest, naturally you were not ready for them.  They overwhelmed you, and you could not control them.  The timer I had coded into your genes was effective.” His smile was cold, disdainful. “ _You_ , however, were not.”

            And there it was.

            Another piece falling into place.

            She could hardly believe it. 

            All the suffering, all the turmoil of those early years… the trauma of killing Cody Robbins with a kiss, with all the gentleness and love inside her… All the running, all the death and the hate and the doubt… It had never been her fault.  She had never been the way she was _meant_ to be.  A time bomb had been planted inside her, ticking away silently for years, deep inside her, waiting to go off.  She dug her nails into the skin of her arms, her knuckles white with the pressure.  Her blood was pounding in her head again, making her dizzy, making her sick…

            “ _You_ …” she voiced hoarsely, hardly knowing she spoke. “ _You_ made me kill Cody…”

            “Yes,” he affirmed with a barely concealed strain of triumph. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do.  You, Rogue, are one of evolution’s expressions of perfection.  A being capable of performing any task required of it merely through a touch.  A receptacle of extraordinary breadth and scope, able to hold within you the entire sum of humanity if you so wished!  You are both nature’s vessel and its executioner in equal parts.  Oh, your powers are indeed formidable!  More’s the pity that you were unable to control them.”

            She dropped her hands, numb, nauseous, looked down into her palms with blank, horrified eyes, saying: “All those years… All that time thinkin’ there was somethin’ _wrong_ with me… It was _you_.  _You_ made me go wrong…”

            “Wrong?!” His countenance was one of incredulity. “It was I who made you _right!_   And imagine my surprise when, years after I had given you up as lost, you turned up first with the Brotherhood, and then with the X-Men!  Broken goods, unable to control your powers, unable even to _recognise_ the potential in you.  You were a disappointment – but I did not entirely give up hope on you.  As it happened, my interest in the X-Men was piqued long before by the birth of the child of Scott Summers and Jean Grey.  Through careful machinations, I managed to enlist the help of a certain young mutant in infiltrating the X-Men with the sole purpose of retrieving both you and Miss Summers, thus returning you to my care.”

            “ _Remy_ ,” she spoke breathlessly.  She’d already known it, but it didn’t stop the ache inside her, didn’t stop her from casting her mind back years to the time they had both shared at the X-Men; time they had spent together, talking, laughing, flirting, _falling in love_ … How much of it had been lies?  How much of it had been a masquerade when he had _known_ that, somewhere down the line, he would have had to hand her over to Essex?  She couldn’t believe it.  She couldn’t believe he had done it willingly.

            “You _blackmailed_ him,” she stated in an accusatory tone; but he merely laughed.

            “Perhaps.  Maybe a little.  It didn’t take much though.  A warm bed, a roof over his head, all the money he could possibly want… Winning him over wasn’t very hard.” His smile faded, quickly turned to something cold and cruel. “As it turned out, however, his mission was not to be completed.  The military attacked the mansion and most of its inhabitants were killed.  I believed you dead.  Until very recently, as it happens.”

            He paused once more, his gaze becoming more reflective.

            “It seems both Destiny and Mystique managed to hide your continued existence from me – though they served their purpose in teaching you control of your powers, I will give them _that_ due.  And as for LeBeau… Once he was aware that you lived, he too unwittingly aided them in keeping you hidden.  His selfish lust for you made certain of that.  Even after you came to my attention after that debacle down at the Hound Pens, he sought to keep you from me.  However, as luck would have it, I still had something to offer him in return for giving you up.  And now… you find yourself here.  In the heart of my domain.  Where you belong, and where you were always intended to remain.”

            She was shaking.  Shaking all the way through his speech, as all the years of deception and deceit were laid bare for her to see.  As Irene’s insistence that _she had a purpose_ suddenly took on a new shade, a new significance.  There had never been a grand story for her.  Nor had there ever been a meaning to her suffering, to all her travails.  Remy was right, _had_ been right all along.  There was no purpose to _any_ of this.  She was a machine, an automaton wired to become Sinister’s plaything.  Only the machinations of Destiny herself had set her free from that fate.  She had _always_ been free, but – ironically – had never known it.

            “You may have bought Remy,” she told him, her voice trembling with myriad emotions – fear, anger, the cold; “but you can’t buy me, Essex.  There’s nothin’ in the world you can blackmail me with.  Or are you going to add me to your ‘collection’?  ‘Cos you might as well save your breath and just do it now.  Ah ain’t got a thing left to live for now, and Ah ain’t interested in your stories.”

            A smile curled his lip, full of mingled scorn and admiration for her impudence.

            “Ah, Rogue, so eloquent you are,” he mocked her softly. “But I have no need to blackmail you; nor am I interested in adding you to the collection you see here.” He looked over at Remy, who was still standing silently by the computer console. “Bring him down,” he ordered peremptorily.  Remy turned and ran his finger across a touch panel.  The next moment a section of the wall began to move downward like a panel in a slot machine, the grinding of cogs and gears nearly drowning out the sound of Sinister’s voice as he continued to speak.

            “I told you, did I not Rogue, that you were always meant to serve a special purpose?  Well now at last we come to the moment when you shall begin to fulfil that purpose for me.”

            He turned as a tank bearing the small, stunted form of Leech came level with the ground; the machinery laboured and screeched as the glass and titanium case was levered slowly into a horizontal position.  The pod groaned along thin metal runners, moved slowly towards Rogue, and came to a stop at her feet.  She looked down unwillingly through the glass.  There he was.  Not much more than a boy; she didn’t even know his name.  When she’d asked him, the first time she’d met him down in the sewers with the rest of the Morlocks, he had said, “Just call me Leech.” And when she asked him why, he’d replied, “’Cos it’s what I do.”  And she’d said, “You can call me Rogue.  ‘Cos it’s what Ah am.”

            And now what did it all mean?

            Sinister had opened up a panel on the side of the tank, had pressed a few buttons.  The liquid in the tank was draining, and had been flushed out through some metal tubing she guessed was under the floors from the sounds she could hear gushing and gurgling beneath her.  He pressed another button; the glass case slid open slowly.  There was the pungent odour of unfamiliar chemicals; warm steam rose into the air like dry ice.  The young boy lay wet and still in his cradle, as fresh and alive as if he had never aged a day since she had last seen him.  Even a bruise, on his left cheek, had been preserved by whatever solution Essex had kept him in.  She was caught between the instinct to touch him, to shake him into wakefulness, and the urge to leave him there as he was, endlessly sleeping, oblivious to this cage that now housed him.

            “He’s just a kid…” she murmured, her heart going out to him, going out to him with all the small, short, meaningless memories they had shared – there weren’t many.

            “Indeed,” Essex agreed dispassionately. “A most singular subject.  His powers manifested before puberty, as did his physical deformations.  A mutant, through and through.  An insignificant one, however.” He turned to her. “You, on the other hand, are anything but.  Reach out, touch him, and his powers become yours.  Instantly.  And always accessible. _Forever_.”

            And suddenly, she saw it.  The fit.  What it all meant.  In that one moment, her place within Destiny’s web became clear.  She clung, like a widow spider, in the middle, linked inexorably to every other player in this game, ready to pounce, to feed, to ingest.

            And he saw that she saw it when he looked into her eyes.

            “Ah, _now_ you begin to realise it, Rogue,” he hissed insidiously. “And the wonder is that you never realised it before this moment.  The potential you have, the _limitless_ potential, to _be every mutant that lives_.  When I first realised what you had become, when I first saw you with the Brotherhood and then with the X-Men, I knew that you were not merely to be added to my collection.  You were to _be_ my collection.  In all its glorious entirety.”

            And she took a step back, her head spinning, her breath coming fast as she rasped: “ _No_ …”

            “ _Yes_ ,” he spat exultantly, grasping her wrist in a claw-like hand, drawing her back towards him. “Why deny what is so evident?  Why deny the greatness you could achieve with the combined power of the most formidable beings on this planet?  There is _nothing_ that could stand in your way, not even the Hounds, not even the Sentinels.  _That_ is the meaning of _homo superior_ , Rogue.  And _you are it_.  One of my crowning achievements.  You will stand at the head of my army, you will be at the very apex of your kind.”

            And her head was swimming, the psyches beneath it singing, screaming, screeching inside her, a cacophony so loud that it almost drowned out her own thoughts, the insistence that this _was not possible_ …

            “Ah won’t do it,” she gasped; but his grip was vice-like on hers and he jerked her forward, towards Leech lying cold and damp in the pod before her, and she heard him say grimly:

            “You don’t have a choice.”

            And she saw suddenly that there was a remote control in his hand; he pressed a button and something in the collar round her neck buzzed into life; she felt it thrumming, through her skin, her veins, her pores and her nerves, coursing through every fibre in her body, making the hair on her stand on end, and she realised, she _knew_ … he was switching it on. Her power.  Panic rose in her, pure and unadulterated terror, and the psyches were all awakening, one by one, shrieking, clamouring to be heard, screaming _don’t let this happen, don’t let this happen…!_

            She tried to pull away, but he jerked her forward again, and through the maelstrom inside her head she saw her hand shaking, hovering over the small form lying prostrate before her.

            “ _No no no, don’t make me do it, please don’t make me do it…!_ ” she wailed and:

            “You will!” she heard him say, “You _must_!”

            And he yanked her hand forward, downward, against the cheek of the sleeping boy, and _connection_ , no pulling, no need, just everything, pouring into her in a great, heaving flood; pure blackness descending over her, a consciousness with no thoughts, no feelings, no sensation, just quietness, stillness, darkness, a vast expanse, _years_ of it, eating her up, sucking her in and…

            She screamed.

            And then she was on the other side.  Slimy blackness gave way to light.  She tumbled through into it, free falling, and – _whoosh!_ – the memories began, crashing up and over her, like catapulting into a pool feet first, and drowning in it, his life, every single minute of it, whirlpooling round her in a fast-moving spiral, tunnelling downward, downward, downward, smaller and smaller and thinner and thinner, to a pinprick in the very bottom she didn’t think she could fit through…

 

            “ _Stop, stop, Ah’ll kill him!”_ she thought or she screamed out loud – she wasn’t sure; and just as she was about to get lost in the blackness forever – _snap!_ – the connection broke with all the brutal physicality of whiplash, her hand free at long last.

            Rogue dropped to the floor like a stone, and there was nothing except a blurry, spinning whiteness and the sound of her own ragged breaths.  And then… hands on her.  Familiar.  Steadying her, holding her up.

            “ _Remy_ ,” she thought or she said, before the pressure of those hands became paper thin, the sounds receded far, far away, and the lights went out.

 

*


	9. Sage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue is forced by Essex to make another absorption, whilst Remy finally pushes Essex to fulfil his part of their bargain.

            _Everything is dank and dark and stinks._

_It doesn’t smell like it did in the internment camp.  In the camp there was the odour of decaying flesh, mould, urine and excrement.  Here it smells of hospitals.  Of medicine and chemicals.  She can’t place it.  She doesn’t understand what it means.  It almost makes it worse than the horrible smells she’s encountered before._

_She hears boot steps and she peers through the bars.  It’s the man.  She sees him coming.  No swagger, no sinuous strength this time.  He is quiet, measured.  Hesitant, even._

_He stops right in front of her cell and gets down on his haunches.  Peers through the bars at her.  She doesn’t flinch.  She’s used to them coming and staring at her.  Used to them poking and prodding and prying._

_That’s not what he’s here to do.  She sees he has a tray in his hands. Bread and water.  Standard fare, wherever you happen to be incarcerated. He slips open a panel in the door, slides it in.  The panel slams shut again._

_But the man doesn’t go.  He stays.  His red eyes bore into her, staring with a stark intensity.  His expression is otherwise unreadable._

_She stares back.  Mirroring his expression.  No fear.  She’s learned this since she was four.  Show fear and it provokes them.  Fear invites punches and kicks and endless hurt and pain.  She’s become an expert at deflection._

_They stare at each other a long time, neither giving way._

_Then the man’s eyes flicker._

_“I’m sorry,” he says._

_She hasn’t expected that.  She blinks._

_“If it’s any consolation, you won’t feel a t’ing,” he continues. “It’ll be peaceful.  You’ll sleep.  You’ll never feel pain again.”_

_She doesn’t understand what he means.  She expects death –_ has _been expecting it for years now.  The sooner it comes the better.  She stares up at him mutely, wishing he would_ go _._

_His eyes shift.  Those dark eyes, once unwavering, now… sad.  He looks aside.  He sighs, and at last he stands._

_“I’m sorry,” he says again, and this time she can’t see his face.  He stands and waits a moment, as if wanting her to speak.  She still won’t give him the satisfaction.  After a while he takes the hint.  He turns and walks away, and soon his boot steps are gone._

*

 

            Rogue surfaced from Leech’s memory slowly.

            What she saw first was the soft glow that illuminated the bed that she lay upon; and beyond, a room swathed in semi-darkness.

            Her head was woolly, as though stuffed with cotton.  Usually, when she’d absorbed someone that deeply and for that length of time, she would wake up with a monster of a migraine and be laid up for the better part of the day, if not more.  Now she felt strangely light-headed.  Somewhere at the back of her mind, the logical part of her was telling her that she had been drugged.  The other half was letting her ride out the sensation and making the most of the fact that she _wasn’t_ hurting.

            She swivelled her head slightly to the right.

            Remy was there, leaning over a computer console with his back to her.  The line of his shoulders was taut, tense.  She considered him almost casually, without the fear or dread that she should have felt, a gift blissfully bestowed by the haze of the anaesthesia.  He didn’t want to be doing this.  She was certain of that.  But if he didn’t want this then Sinister must have had something on him, something big… bigger than any love they might have shared.

            But what?

            What could possibly be greater than this thing she had cherished for so long and so dearly?

            Had she been wrong about them…about _him_ …this whole time? For all these years?

            The thought pained her despite the numbness of the drugs and she opened her mouth, her lips dry and chapped, his name tumbling out involuntarily, gracelessly.

            “Remy…”

Her voice was thin and wispy even to her own ears and seemed to come from somewhere else entirely.  At the sound of it he started and turned to face her.  He seemed surprised that she was awake.

            “You were in his mem’ries…” she murmured again, as he walked up to stand beside her.  His eyes were focused upward, at what she thought must be a monitor above her head.  After a moment he looked down on her, his expression inscrutable.

            “You were kind to him…” she continued, and he reached out, touched her forehead, said, “Shhh…”

            She closed her eyes, focused on his fingers, there, on her skin; and somehow despite all the cobwebs and the sawdust invading her brain she remembered the truth; she lifted a hand and found his forearm, touched it weakly.

            “He’s always wanted me… You always knew… You woulda protected me from him… Ah know that…”

            His silence was penetrating; his handprint was warm as sunlight on her forehead.  He said nothing.  Presently his hand disappeared and she opened her eyes again.  Now he was holding a syringe, full of clear liquid.

            _No, no, no, not good…_

            “Remy…” she began again, trying to pinpoint it, trying desperately to cut through the fog in her head, but —

            “Shhh,” he repeated softly. “You need to rest.  Essex will be needin’ you again soon.  Dis’ll help you sleep.”

            She felt the pinprick in her arm.  The cold liquid coursing through her vein.  Almost immediately it began to take effect.  He pulled out the needle, laid it aside.  Before he could turn away again she reached out, she touched his hand.

            “Remy… You woulda protected me… Always…”

            His hand was like stone; her own limbs were becoming leaden once more, dead-weights.  Her hand dropped from his and she fought it, briefly, before it became too delicious to resist.  In another moment the cavernous darkness had caught her, and she was lost once more in a dreamless slumber.

 

*

 

            When she woke up next, it was Remy that was transporting her back to room that housed Sinister’s collection.

            She didn’t see him at first.  But she sensed him, his presence, his warmth.  His scent undercut the drug-induced haze in her brain, subtle as his movements, dark as his eyes.

            It was only a couple of seconds before his face came into view above her.  His gaze was level, impassive, communicating nothing.  But he _was_ communicating to her, somehow.  He didn’t need to touch her, didn’t need to look at her.  Just his nearness was enough.  It told her that he felt her pain.  It told her that he’d never wanted this.

            He disappeared again, and once more she heard that same door creaking open, felt that frigid air touch her skin, felt the darkness crawl over her.  This time Remy flipped the lights on.  He unstrapped her from the gurney, helped her up with a gentle touch.  She sat there on the trolley, shivering.  The heat of his hand on her back made it worse.

            “Ah’m cold,” she murmured, running her hands up her arms.

            “Dis won’t take long,” he replied. She looked around her.  The tanks had already been revealed.  This time she studied the contents more closely.  She recognised a couple more faces.  There were still a few more she could put no name to.

            “He wants me to absorb them all?” she whispered.  There were hundreds here.  She didn’t know if her mind would be able to take even a fraction of them.

            “ _Oui_ ,” he returned.  She swallowed.  Her nails were sharp in the skin of her bare arms.  It unnerved her to know that she hadn’t had time to attend to Leech’s psyche, hadn’t had the chance to put him away in his own little room and keep him quiet.  Yet that was exactly what he was.  Quiet.  As if he wasn’t there at all.  And it wasn’t just the drugs giving the effect.  She knew that for certain.

            “Ah…Ah don’t think Ah can absorb them all,” she told him, her voice trembling from the cold, from the fear. “Ah don’t think my psyche can handle it…” She turned to him, fixed her eyes on his imploringly. “Yah haveta tell him, Remy,” she begged desperately. “You _know_ what it’s like for me.  The dreams… the blackouts… the random power manifestations…  Ah can’t do it.  It’ll break mah mind.  It could _kill_ me…”

            His expression was still inscrutable; but there was a flicker of warmth in his eyes that she clung to.

            “Damn you, Remy!” she wailed, fighting back a sudden drug-induced wave of nausea. “You’ve gotta help me!  What if Ah drain them dry?  What if he makes me carry on absorbin’ them after they’re _gone_?  It’ll kill me!  Ah can’t do it, Remy!  Ah – Ah _can’t_!”

            He gazed at her for a long painful moment, his Adam’s apple rising and falling.  Then he put a hand on her shoulder blade and said, almost impassively: “Essex will make sure you can.  Don’t worry.”

            The words only served to sharpen the helplessness of her anxiety.  She fought back the urge to vomit with an effort, gagging not just with the nausea but with fear.  All those years playing Mystique’s whore, all those times she’d sacrificed her body to _the cause_ … none of them had hurt like this.

 _None_.

            She stared at her hands, her eyes burning with tears of rage and impotence that she refused to let fall, not when she was beside this man she had trusted more than anyone or anything, yet who had delivered her up to _this_.

            When the tide of nausea had passed she looked up at him with an expression fuelled by such hatred and betrayal that he was forced to look away.  Several moments passed before he could raise his eyes again, and when he did he indicated that she get down from the gurney with a short gesture of the hand – she did so, but only reluctantly. 

            It was only then, as he wheeled the trolley away into a corner and she was left to look about her, that she noticed Essex standing a little way off, examining one of the prizes in his collection.  Rogue recognised the woman in the tank as Sage.  She had only met her once.  Sage had been one of Xavier’s undercover operatives, always on a mission, always playing someone else.  She’d only come to the mansion once during Rogue’s tenure as an X-Men, and even then Rogue had learned very little about her.  She supposed that, from today, she’d get to learn everything she’d missed.

            Sinister seemed to realise her presence.  He looked back over his shoulder at her, as though unwilling to be drawn away from a particularly fascinating exhibit in a museum.

            “Ah, Rogue.  Here at last.” He grinned mockingly at her. “I trust Gambit treated you with more respect than Arclight and Harpoon did yesterday?”

            She made no reply and he snickered.

            “Not as eloquent today, are we?  Just as well, perhaps.  There is much to do and little time.” He turned back to the dark-haired woman floating in the tank above him. “Come here,” he ordered her peremptorily.

            She made no effort to move, until she felt Remy’s hand on the small of her back, impelling her forward with a gentle pressure.  Remembering Irene’s warning that she must _let this happen_ , she allowed herself to be guided by him to stand beside Essex.  If she had no choice in this, she would do as she was told, but only if _he_ asked it of her, not Essex.

            As it was, Essex already seemed to have forgotten her.  His eyes were still on the form of the woman floating unconscious in the tank, his face illuminated a sickly shade of green from the liquid that enclosed her and all the other occupants of that room.  Remy took a step back from them.  He was behind her – she could feel him.  Just an arm’s length away.

            “I’d like to show you one of the best in my collection,” Sinister spoke, still not looking down at her. “A singular specimen, whose like, I do not think, has been matched.”

            She looked up at the woman.  Even in the harshly coloured light she could see the evidence of her last fight on her body.  Angry bruises, welts and cuts seemed to cover every inch of her.  The liquid chemical had preserved them all.

            “Sage,” she whispered.

            “Yes,” Essex nodded approvingly. “The human computer.  And a mutant who could jumpstart the latent abilities in other mutants.  I had watched her closely since birth.  Her mutations fascinated me.  She was to have been another of my chosen few.  Her ability to psionically adjust, modify and restructure the mutant genome would have been a true asset to my cause.  Unfortunately, that meddlesome Charles Xavier won her over.  And she was not an easy woman to locate, nor to catch.”

            “She ain’t in such good shape,” Rogue noted in a low voice.

            “No.  She fought valiantly, when she was brought in.  Luckily, LeBeau was better.”

            At last he turned away from Sage and round to her.

            “You, on the other hand, have not fought, Rogue.  Not once since you have entered this place.  And that intrigues me.”

            “Even if Ah was able to get the better of you two without access to my powers or even with mah bare hands, Ah wouldn’t even know how to escape from this place without your Marauders comin’ and stickin’ somethin’ sharp in mah back.  Like they tried to do to Emma.”

            Her words held a defiance that somehow overtook her fear.  Sinister laughed.

            “Yes.  Quite.  I see there is more logic in you than I first thought.  It is, of course, quite pointless for you to resist.  Even your formidable powers have been accounted for.” He gestured to the disruptor around her neck. “Believe me when I say that I have no intention of harming you.  You are far too precious an asset.  But there are ways of making you comply if you prove to be difficult.” His eyes shifted over her shoulder towards Remy. “Bring her down,” he ordered.

            Wordlessly Remy moved to the computer console.  A few seconds later, Sage’s tank was being cranked down towards the floor.

            “Do you begin to see, Rogue, what you were _born_ to be?” Essex asked her above the mechanical drone of cogs and gears grinding. “That all this is merely part of your destiny, your purpose in life?”

            It would hardly have meant anything to her had he not mentioned the word ‘destiny’.  A coincidence, perhaps – but it seemed to ring out to her as clearly as a clarion call.  She could not believe it.  That it had been Irene’s intent all along that she become _this_.  And suddenly she doubted.  She doubted that she was doing the right thing in following Irene’s advice, in _not_ fighting; even though logic also told her she had no other choice.

            “You were born to be a warrior,” Essex was continuing as Sage’s coffin slowly advanced. “You were born to be one of the most powerful beings on this planet.  And I… I am merely _helping_ you achieve that potential.”

            The tank ground to a halt.  Remy was close again, hovering somewhere to her right and a little way behind.  Despite the fact that he wasn’t even on her side anymore, she drew strength from his presence.  She steeled herself as Sinister opened up the glass facing of the tank, as the steam billowed up and the chemical scent poured out.  Again, there was Remy’s hand on her back, making her step forward to stand beside Sinister at the opening of the tank.  Sage lay there, battered and bruised and ripe for the taking.  Rogue looked down on her but barely saw her.  She had closed her mind tight shut.  When she felt Essex flip the reverse switch on her disruptor, when she felt her power flare under the pores of her skin, making her hair stand on end, she froze.  She couldn’t do it.

            “ _Make her_ ,” she heard Sinister hiss beside her, and Remy was suddenly there, stepping in right behind her so that the warmth of his body ran all the way down her back; he reached out with a gloved hand and took her wrist, no roughness, no violence in his grasp.  He said nothing.  His fingers moved downward from her wrist, clasped her palm, his thumb brushing against her knuckles.  No coercion, only insinuation.  Coaxing her to do this terrible thing she didn’t want to do.  Somehow saying _it’ll be all right_ when she knew it wouldn’t.

            She leaned back into him, twisted her head towards his shoulder, an animal sound of fear sounding in her throat as she hoped, _prayed_ , that he wouldn’t do this to her… and there was a pause, a split second where he almost seemed to hesitate, to hear the depth of her pain.

            It was a split second that ended all too soon.  She could do nothing but let him guide her hand downward; and as she knew contact was inevitable that steeliness in her increased; she held herself so tight she thought she would shatter.

            And then there it was – just her fingers, splayed out upon damp flesh, and this time there was no terror, no tidal wave.  She drank it in, bit by bit, gulp by gulp, measured surges coming and going over her in waves… She couldn’t let this take over her, she couldn’t.

            Remy’s grip tightened on hers, holding her hand on Sage’s skin, and suddenly she realised it didn’t seem to be stopping, that Sage’s psyche just kept on _coming_ at her, and even though she was forcing herself to take this slow, she was filling up, filling up to the brim, and now she was treading water just about keeping her chin above the surface…

            And then she was under, underneath the cold, dark memories swirling like ink around her, dragging her under.  But still she steeled herself, making herself small and hard against the irresistible current, as insignificant as a stone being tossed around in a riverbed.  Sage’s memories were drowning her, buffeting her this way and that, impelling her downwards towards the _end_ where she knew she could go no further, where there would be _nothing left_.

            She finally took in a desperate gasp, unable to speak, unable to see, unable to shout out and call that she was _done_ , that if she held on any longer she would be lost.  And he heard her.  He heard her as if she had spoken to him.

            Remy drew back her hand, even as she stood on the threshold of that nothingness.

            But his hand did not leave hers as her eyes rolled and she sank into his arms, unconscious.

 

*

 

            _She’s gotten sloppy._

_Take her back a few years and she’d have pummelled this pretender into the ground._

_But being imprisoned without access to your powers for all this time and well, this is what happens.  You get sloppy._

_The tip of his boot clips her on the cheek._

_Time was, it would’ve just sailed past.  And though she’s dodging like a prize fighter, though she’s giving him a run for his money, he’s getting too many hits in.  He’s wearing her down, slowly but surely._

_There’s one thing she knows.  He doesn’t want her dead.  Whatever he wants her for, he needs her alive._

_He whips out his quarterstaff, extends it, charges it.  She processes, she analyses.  She knows it’s going to hit her before it does.  But she has nothing.  She’s completely drained.  She hurts too much._

_The charged staff slams into her solar plexus.  When she hits the ground, she can barely breathe.  The oxygen sears in her throat._

_“Shouldn’ta put up a fight, chere,” he gloats down at her, panting hard with the exertion of their fight.  The tip of the staff, now uncharged, presses against her throat, holding her down, making it doubly hard for her to breathe. “You ain’t even got a ghost of a chance wit’out your powers.”_

_He’s good.  She’d heard about him before, way back, from Xavier.  Xavier had trusted him.  Despite all his past, all his secrets, Xavier had seen the good in him.  And look how that had turned out._

_“Traitor,” she rasps.  She spits at him; it lands on his thigh.  His expression changes.  There is quiet anger on his features, calm, controlled rage.  A fire that burns with an icy flame.  He lifts the staff, ready to strike, and she doesn’t have a chance.  It slams into the side of her skull and she’s out._

*

 

            She awoke to murmuring above her; to the sound of his voice.  It floated in and out of range for a moment, and this time she kept her eyes shut in an attempt not to give herself away.

            “We need a better way to do dis,” he was saying. “De next time we could lose her completely if we don’t stop de absorption in time.”

            He was right above her; she could almost feel his breath on her skin; his voice was louder than the monitors tracking out her heartbeat.

            “And what do you propose we do?” Sinister’s voice returned, mild and inoffensive as the cobra about to strike.  He was close too; but not as close as Remy was. 

            “We need some way of stoppin’ de absorption before she passes out,” Remy replied, and his voice was calm and confident, unfazed by Essex’s gently ominous question. “If she don’t stop, she’ll drain de subject dry.  She’ll kill them.  God knows what it’ll do t’ her.”

            “Hm.” Essex’s tone was slightly troubled. “Perhaps you could convince her it would be in her best interests to cooperate, to do the absorption of her own volition, to control the process instead of making us force her.  I do so loathe unwilling subjects.  It makes one’s work that much harder.”

            “I could try,” Remy rejoined doubtfully, “but I don’t t’ink it’d take.”

            “Why not?  She still trusts you.”

            “Somehow, I don’t t’ink dat stands anymore,” he murmured.  There was a pause; she felt Remy’s gaze sweep over her face a moment, warm and intent, before slipping away once more.

            “I want de surgery,” he said suddenly, in a tone that was self-assured, authoritative even.  This time the silence was tense; a battle of wills being fought out above her without a single word spoken.  It seemed an age before she next heard Essex’s reply.

            “There are other things of more importance right now,” he spoke in a taut voice, as if anger dripped like venom from its edges.  Remy was not dissuaded.

            “To you, maybe.  Not to me.  I want what’s mine.  Or haven’t I proven myself enough these past few months?”

            Sinister laughed at that.  A low, menacing snicker.

            “Proof of your worth is one thing.  Proof of your loyalty is quite another.” There was a pause and Essex seemed to turn, walk off some little way into the distance. “Still,” he continued thoughtfully, “you _have_ brought Rogue to me.  And that, after all, _was_ a part of the deal.  It would be remiss of me not to fulfil my side of the bargain.” He turned, his tone suddenly decided. “We will talk on this later, LeBeau.  You shall have your due.”

            There was a mechanical hiss, the sound of the drug being injected directly once more into her vein.  The coldness ran up her arm and was lost in a delicious blurry haze.  There was no more conversation, and Rogue gave herself into the numbing warmth.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	10. Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven makes a decision to kill Sinister, Remy makes a decision to put himself in Sinister’s hands, and nothing will ever be the same again.

            Logan was pissed.  More than pissed.

            He was teetering on the edge of a berserker rage and the only thing keeping him from giving into it was the fact that Jubilee was still standing next to him alive and in one piece.  Emma wasnear death, Synch was severely wounded, and Psylocke was in a coma.  Rogue was missing, and had been for the better part of a day now.

            “It was a set up,” he growled between his teeth. “It was a fuckin’ set up!”

            “Of course it was!” Raven Darkhölme stormed. “I just can’t believe you fucking fell for it!”

            He bit back another expletive.  She was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, her face drained of all colour, her long, thin fingers working agitatedly at her sides.  Irene, on the other hand, sat motionless in a chair, staring at the floor with blind eyes.  If Logan had had a choice, he would have gone to hell in a fast car rather than let either of them on his turf.  But times like these made for strange bedfellows.  Considering the circumstances, old enmities were the last thing on his mind.  And with the state his crew was in, he figured he might even be needing Raven’s help in all this. Even if, in actual fact, the only thing he’d gained out of this so far was Forge’s strictly technical expertise and the Brotherhood’s tentative knowledge as to where Sinister’s base actually was.

            “You mean we nearly lost Emma just because those douchebags wanted Rogue?” Jubilee exclaimed incredulously, and Raven whipped round on her.

            “Those were Sinister’s _Marauders_!  Do you know what the fuck that _means_?!”

            “Yeah,” Logan interrupted gruffly, deflecting Raven’s wrath from the girl. “It means Sinister wants her for something; and that means Rogue’s still alive.  For now.”

            “For now,” Raven repeated on an acid laugh. “ _For now_ isn’t damn good enough!  If she’s in the hands of that twisted fuck, God knows what he could do to her without ever having to lay a finger on her!”

            Logan barely heard her tirade.  Something else had occurred to him.  It was a train of thought he didn’t like at all.

            “Gambit,” he spoke on an impulse.  The name stopped Raven in her tracks.  She went very still and glared at him.

            “ _What did you say_?”

            “Gambit,” he echoed, more loudly this time. “Don’t you see the fit?  Rogue.  Sinister and his Marauders.  Gambit’s gotta be in there somewhere.”

            Raven stared at him through viper-like eyes.  The next moment she’d slammed her fist into a wall, leaving a sizeable dent in the plaster work.

            “ _I’ll kill him!_ ” she barked in an explosion of rage and hate. “And he _swore_ he would protect her!”

            “And you believed him?” Logan asked disbelievingly.

            “Not _me_.” She gestured to the old woman sitting silently in her corner. “Irene.” She turned to her, railed at her with mingled fury and despair: “You told me to let him go!  You said it would be for the _best_!”

            Irene said nothing, but her wrinkled hands were clasped, vice-like, in her lap, tight as a drawstring.  Logan saw it.  Whatever façade of equanimity she displayed now, inside she was a seething mass of controlled fear and doubt.

            “Oh _shit_ ,” Jubilee suddenly muttered to herself.  He looked at her sideways.

            “What?”

            “Rogue.  She got a text the other night,” the younger woman explained in a rush, her face flushed. “It was from Gambit.  I thought it was like, y’know, somethin’ _private_.  She left soon after.”

            For Logan it was pretty much proof enough that the Cajun was involved.

            “Shit,” he groaned, knowing he should’ve gutted the snake the moment he’d laid eyes on him again that time back in Chicago, Rogue in tow.

            Mystique was pacing again, hardly listening to anything that was being said around her.  The way she was walking up and down like a trammelled beast was seriously starting to tick him off.

            “This is bad,” she was muttering to herself. “Really bad.  Essex cannot have her.  Not at any cost.” She stopped again, spinning round to face Irene, who was still staring impassively at the ground. “What do you see, Irene?” she questioned with an undisguised strain of desperation. “What do you _see_?”

            “What I’ve always seen,” Irene spoke for the first time, her voice barely audible. “Nothing has changed.”

            “How can that _be_?!” Mystique raved. “How is that _possible_?!  We’ve taken every precaution against this!  _Every_ precaution!  For _years_!  And yet you let her fall into the hands of that thief, a man we both _knew_ was in the employ of Sinister!”

            “I trusted him,” Irene spoke, and Logan saw that despite the calm confidence of her words, she was still wringing her hands – that she had not stopped. “I still do.”

            “Trust him?” Again, Logan was incredulous. “Why?”

            Raven didn’t give her time to reply; she answered for her.

            “She believed he was playing Sinister.  Playing him to keep Rogue protected.  But if that was the case,” and she glanced daggers in Irene’s direction, “why would he give her up to him?  _Why_?”

            “Perhaps Fate is not to be denied,” Irene said quietly, and Raven stared at her as if she’d been slapped in the face.  Her eyes went wide.

            “ _What have you seen_?” she repeated, and this time her voice shook with emotion.  Irene made no reply, but turned slightly to face them, opening a small bag at her side, pulling out a thick, leather-bound book.  Mystique’s eyes grew even wider; there was a terrible kind of dread in them, the look of a woman going to her own execution.

            Irene saw none of this.  She flicked through the pages as she had done so many times before; at last she reached a certain page – she spread it open with both hands, ran her palms over the paper as though reading its texture, as though it spoke to her in a way words could not.  Logan saw that as she did so her face grew pale and drawn – there was an expression on her features that was almost like agony.

            And Raven was trembling, shaking visibly as Irene lifted the book and turned it to show them.

            There was a picture of Rogue, drawn in pencil, painted in watercolour; a crude image, Logan thought, yet not without a certain amateur skill.  It might almost have been charming, had there not been a knife blade in her breast.  And on the other end of that knife was the unmistakeable figure of Sinister.

            An animal sound came from Raven’s mouth, something between a shriek and a gasp.  Logan sucked in a breath.  Jubilee looked confused, scared.

            “Why didn’t you tell me?!” Raven screamed when she had finally found her tongue. “ _Why didn’t you tell me?!_ ”

            Irene did not answer.  She snapped the book shut as if it were a cursed thing.  Her face was like stone.

            “What the hell _was_ that?” Jubilee whispered to Logan beside her.

            “The _Libris Veritatus_ ,” he replied, not bothering to lower his voice. “Destiny’s prophecies.  The future history of mutantkind.” His tone was stern, unforgiving as he addressed the older woman. “So you knew this would happen, huh?  And you didn’t even try to stop it?”

            Irene’s mouth was a hard, straight line, making no excuses.  He was half glad – if she had, it might have tipped him over into the rage he was still teetering precariously on the edge of.

            “I can’t believe it,” Raven said, and for the first time Logan heard real vulnerability in her voice. “I can’t believe you would hide this from me, Irene.  I can’t believe you’ve allowed this to happen.” She turned; a tear streaked down a cheek as she did so.  And that was it.  The only tear Logan ever saw her shed.

            In another moment that look was gone and that inscrutable hardness had returned.  She swept past them towards the door with a look of steely determination.  It was as if no else in the room existed at all.

            “Where’re you goin’?” Logan growled at her, and she stopped at the door, her hand hovering over the handle like a moment stopped in time.

            “There’s only one way to stop all this,” she spoke gravely. “And that’s to kill Essex before he kills her.”

            “What the hell— By yourself?” Jubilee cried, just as Logan cut in right over her: “You’re out of your fuckin’ mind, Mystique.  What we need is to take stock and figure out a way of getting Rogue out alive.  Look at what happened to my team – we’re gonna need everyone we can get to infiltrate Sinister’s base, which means we’re gonna haveta wait for some serious injuries to be healed.”

            “You think I’m going to sit here and _wait_ for you to figure out a way to rescue my daughter?!” Raven snarled at him.

            “You can go get yourself killed if you want to,” he retorted coolly. “Which is what you’re gonna do if you go chargin’ into Sinister’s lair without a plan or a backup.  Either way, you ain’t gonna do Rogue any favours by turnin’ up on her doorstep dead.”

            She turned to look at him; he didn’t at all like the animal smile that lit her face.

            “That’s why you’re going to come with me, Logan.”

            “ _No_ ,” he retorted. “I’m needed here.”

            “No.  You’re not.  Let Jubilee stay here and nurse the children to health.  You’ve grown soft in your old age, Logan.  _This_ is what you were made for.  To fight.  And the both of us know one thing for certain – we should’ve killed Essex _long_ ago.  Now we have an excuse neither of us can pass up.”

            The silence that followed was enough to leave no doubt that he was tempted.  Jubilee read him loud and clear.

            “ _No_ , Wolvie,” she begged him. “No _way_.”

            Yet still he remained silent.

            “You won’t stop me from going,” Raven declared defiantly. “And I’m wasting enough time standing here talking to you as it is.  I’ve spent a lifetime trying to keep Rogue out of Sinister’s clutches.  Now, more than ever, I cannot allow it to happen.  So maybe there’ll be hell to pay.  That’s a price worth paying for Rogue.  It always has been.  It always _will_ be.”

            And with that she pushed open the door and charged out.

            Logan stared after her with the claws itching to pop out of his knuckles.  Jubilee turned and looked him right in the eye.

            “ _No_ , Logan,” she said again sternly. “You’re not going.”

            “She don’t stand a chance by herself,” he growled back. “With me, she stands at least half a chance of gettin’ Rogue out.”

            “ _Half_ a chance,” Jubilee agreed pointedly. “And that is nowhere close enough to being good odds, Wolvie.”

            “Not unless Irene is actually right,” Logan replied. “Not unless Gambit is actually on our side.”

            “And you believe that?”

            They both threw a look at Irene, whose eyes were now cast back to a floor she could not see.  The diary lay closed in her lap.

            “No,” he said at last. “But I ain’t sure I believe in those damn prophecies either.” He took Jubilee by the shoulders, continued: “You’ll take care of things while I’m away, right?”

            “Aw, hell!” she exhaled sulkily. “This sucks major balls, Wolvie.  If you die, we’re _all_ toast.  You do know that, right?”

            “Didn’t you hear, kid?  I’m real hard to kill.” He grinned. “Don’t wait up.”

            And the next moment he had brushed past her and out the door.

            Jubilee was left with the silence and an old woman who seemed to have started the mutant answer to World War III.

            “Couldn’t you _stop_ them?” she demanded accusingly.  Irene did not even turn to her.

            “No,” she said in an almost dreamy tone. “Let them go.  It’s for the best.”

            “Yeah?” Jubilee muttered under her breath, kicking aside a loose stub of cigar Logan had left lying on the floor. “Well I sure as hell don’t like your idea of what’s for the best.  Seems like all it does is get people killed.”

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            There wasn’t much to it.

            Just a small sliver of organic material floating in a glass tube.  That was how much lay between him and the person he was supposed to be – a person of unstoppable power.

            Remy lay back in the surgical pod and watched it.  This insignificant piece of him in the hands of another – in the hands of Sinister.  And he thought, perhaps, that he had _always_ been right there.  In Sinister’s hands, from the moment of his birth.

            There was something poetic in this.  A sense of coming home, a sense of completion.  The righting of a wrong; and the promise of something new and frightening.

            Remy wasn’t a poetic man, not in that sense.  But this he felt keenly – that this was the first time in his life that he would be whole.

            He didn’t know what it meant, exactly.  This was a gamble, he had no illusions about that.  But gambles were what he did.  He wasn’t afraid of them.  He was more afraid of what he would be capable of once this operation was over.  He was afraid of losing that carefully crafted control.  It was that control that made him the man he was as opposed to the man that everyone saw.  Losing hold of that control meant losing himself.

            Debating all this now was a moot point.  He wasn’t backing out of this, and in fact, he’d never even considered it.  This was all just the culmination of several months’ work, doing everything that was asked of him, making sure that Essex knew he was in for the duration.  Despite everything, Essex had never fully trusted him.  It’d taken a lot of work to convince him that, yes, he knew now that hiding Rogue from him had been a mistake.  Besides, what he was worth to Sinister was more than just the price of a prized asset.  He had to believe he was worth all the years that Essex had spent watching him, cultivating him, from the sidelines. 

            “No changes of heart, LeBeau?” Essex said from the bedside, each word faintly mocking. “No lingering doubts?”

            He held the small vial up to the light between thumb and forefinger.  That tiny piece of brain matter bobbed in liquid the colour of chartreuse.  It occurred to Remy that anything could be in that vial; that it was entirely possible that Essex was playing him.  But it was too late to think about that too.

            “ _Non_ ,” he replied in that same deadpan voice.  Essex grinned that same expansive smile, all teeth and no lips.

            “Excellent.” He turned aside, began to prepare the injection of anaesthetic. “I must admit,” he continued reflectively, “I am quite interested to finally see the results of this particular experiment.  After a delay of some thirty years, it does give one a certain _thrill_ to finally complete what was meant to be one’s crowning accomplishment.  You will be as you were always intended to be.  My greatest masterpiece.  My son.”

            Remy felt a wave of unease, of disgust, at those two awful words – _my son._ When Sinister turned back the syringe was full in his hand.  Remy felt it go in, a pinprick followed by the icy sensation of the anaesthetic coursing through his vein.  Essex stared down at him with the glowing red eyes that he now realised so resembled his own. 

            “Do you remember, Gambit?” he spoke in that velvet voice. “When you first came to me?”

            The drug was already taking effect, the coldness giving way to a prickling warmth.  His mind was suddenly sluggish, forming no reply.

            “You were damaged goods,” Sinister continued, in a voice that began to sound increasingly far away. “And I was forced to degrade you further.  But now – finally – the failure shall be corrected.  When you wake up, you shall have returned to the fold, LeBeau.  In every way imaginable.”

            There was that laughter, floating thinner and thinner in the space between waking and consciousness, until there was nothing left but silence.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            Gambit had gone.

            At least his psyche had gone.

            Rogue had stood outside that plain white door in that plain white corridor and knocked, more than once.  And when there had been no answer she had opened the door.  She had stepped inside, and shut the door behind her.

            He hadn’t been in there either, but she hadn’t left.

            She had stood just inside the doorway for what felt like an age, before moving slowly to the mattress and sitting heavily on the edge.

            And now her stomach was churning horribly.  Churning with all the memories encapsulated in this space, this place that now seemed so terribly tainted.

            She sighed and rubbed her face wearily with both hands.

            It was always either dawn or dusk in the safe house, and she didn’t know why that was, but it was nice that way.  Peaceful.  When by rights her psyche should be breaking apart at the seams and everything here should be in chaos.  But it wasn’t.  Everything was calm, tranquil.  A shaft of dusty sunlight peeking in through half-closed curtains.  The scent of the both of them curling about her like a safety blanket. 

In this place him and her were still alive, even though on the outside they were deader than dead.

            And it hurt.

            Rogue took in a wavering breath and let it out slowly.

            She wasn’t sure why she had sought out his psyche at all.  Maybe it was the fact that she needed a link to a past where things had been less complicated between them, where trust hadn’t even come into the equation.

            But being here… It wasn’t a comfort.

            Because even here, in the safe house, when their lives had overlapped so selfishly, so greedily, for so short a time… even here he had known.  He had _known_ that Essex had always wanted her, that she had always meant _something_ to him.  There had never been a time when Remy _hadn’t_ known.  He had _always_ been lingering on the edge of a betrayal where she was concerned.  All he’d ever needed was a push.

            She hugged her knees to her chest and held herself tight.  There was a sour taste on her tongue and she swallowed it down but it didn’t go.  This was her place, this was her mind, it was her sanctuary and she was supposed to come here to _heal_.  But everything hurt.  _Everything_.

            _It’s week 3 at the holiday home._

_She doesn’t want to leave and she’s beginning to think maybe he doesn’t want to either._

_It’s taken all this time and all this shit, but he’s finally opened up to her.  He laughs like he’s happy here.  He holds her hand without her having to take it first.  Sometimes they spend hours in each other’s company without having to say anything and it’s nice.  They’re comfortable with one another.  They can be in-love and not have to hide it._

_It’s early in the morning and she hasn’t a clue what time it is, but Rachel is out.  They heard her go out the front door about five minutes ago.  She goes out every morning, to the lake, to the woods.  Most days he gets up too and follows her.  Watches her.  Makes sure there’s no trace of her Hound instincts coming back.  But this morning he doesn’t.  He stays in bed._

_“Ain’tcha gonna go spy on her?” she asks him, and there’s a hard little edge to her voice because she doesn’t approve of him treating the girl like an enemy and he knows it.  But he lies there, eyes closed with the sun shining on his olive skin and he curls a smile and says, “Nope.”_

_He takes her hand.  He kisses it.  She rolls over to him, she covers him with kisses until he begs her for mercy, and they laugh and they gasp and they moan and…_

_And afterwards he lies with his head at her breast and she runs her fingers through his hair with the deepest feeling of contentment.  It’s what she feels with him, here, in this place.  Contentment.  When they first arrived here it’d been like paradise.  Everything so free, so perfect.  Like the dream home she’d never bothered to wish for.  This comfort, this security, it had lulled them into something more than all those days spent on the road ever could have done.  They had a bed to sleep in, a room to call their own.  They’d made love every which way they could imagine, in almost every room of the house, anywhere they can get it…… And it isn’t even about lust anymore.  It isn’t even about_ want _.  It’s about being close to someone.  It’s about knowing them inside and out, it’s about trust and tenderness and give and take.  It’s about holding.  It’s about loving._

_It’s why, she thinks, they never get bored._

_“Don’tcha ever get bored?” she asks him, and he says,“Non,” and it’s as if the word should speak for itself – he doesn’t qualify his answer with anything more._

_And she begins to think, maybe he wants this, maybe he wants this to last forever, him and her and Rachel; maybe he loves this more than this drive he has to be_ free _…_

 _She thinks about the length and breadth of their relationship; she thinks about their time with the X-Men and how, even then, even though he had been working for Sinister, there had always been_ something _genuine and true about him whenever he was with her._

_“Wouldja have done it?” she asks him on an impulse, and he runs his fingers down over her abdomen, making her shiver at his touch, and he answers in a murmur, “Done what?”_

_His breath is warm on her stomach and she suppresses another shudder, says, “Betrayed the X-Men to Sinister.  You told Rachel you were confused about your loyalties by the time the military attacked.  And Ah don’t believe for a second that all the good stuff you did as an X-Man was ever just a pretence.”_

_He’s silent for a minute, his forefinger dipping into her navel and circling it gently._

_“It wasn’t,” he replies shortly.  He seems to be deep in thought._

_“So you wouldn’t have?  Betrayed us, Ah mean?”_

_“I wouldn’t have betrayed_ you _.  Or Stormy, I guess.”_

_He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her.  His shields are down.  He’s not lying._

_“Don’tcha ever get worried, Remy?” she quizzes him curiously. “That Essex will call in a marker one day?  We’re headin’ out t’ find Logan and the other X-Men right now, aren’t we.  What if he decides he wants them again?  What would you do?”_

_He considers her a long moment, his dark eyes caressing her face, his mouth caught in a frown that’s almost… sad.  And his fingers touch the butterfly pendant at her breast and he says, “I’d keep him from hurtin’_ you _.”_

_And she shoots him a nettled look, piqued by his answer._

_“So you don’t give a fuck about Logan or Rachel or any of the others that could still be alive…?”_

_And there is this look on his face, this expression that is sad and solemn and truthful and totally unguarded and he says, “_ You _first, Anna.  De others come a very distant second.”_

Rogue shook herself, strangely surprised to find that tears were smarting her eyes.

            _You idiot,_ she reprimanded herself bitterly. _Fallin’ for his lies, lettin’ him sweet talk you into believin’ that you were worth more to him than Sinister’s hold, than his own self-interests. And look how that turned out, huh?  Look at where it’s gotten you, gal._

            But she knew that when he’d said it, it hadn’t just been lies, it hadn’t been just sweet-talk.  He’d meant it when he said it.  And somehow that made everything worse.

            She looked round the empty room, her eyes burning with an angry moisture.

            It was better that his psyche wasn’t here.

            She didn’t know what she might do to him, even if she couldn’t physically connect with him here, even if he wasn’t the man her fists were itching to dish the dirt out on.

            She couldn’t stand to be another moment in this traitorous place.

            The revulsion she felt was almost tangible and she marched out of the room quickly, slamming the door shut behind her.

            It had been a foolish grasp for comfort, she saw that now.  What she needed was something she could work with, something that could actually _help_ her whenever she woke up.  She didn’t care what Irene had said about _letting_ this happen.  Now that she knew the extent of Sinister’s plans for her, her position was untenable.  She _wasn’t_ going to take this, and she was ready to fight him to the death if she had to.

            Even if it meant it was Remy she had to fight instead.

            But yet again Irene’s door was closed tight shut.  No amount of pulling, shoving or banging would get it to open.  It hardly seemed fair, Rogue thought.  This was _her_ head after all.

            “Still no joy?”

            It was Rachel, leaning outside her own door a little way down the white corridor, arms crossed.  Rogue decided to give up.  It was clear to her that where Irene was concerned, there was only one person that was boss and it wasn’t her.

            “Ah dunno,” Rogue sighed, turning away from the door and walking towards the younger woman. “With Irene, if there’s nothin’ more to be said, there’s nothin’ more to be said.  She won’t come out till there is.” She paused, looked around her. “Where’s Gambit?”

            Rachel shrugged.

            “Dunno.  Haven’t seen him for a while now.  That’s kinda weird, huh?  Did you two have a fight or something?”

            Rogue thought about it.  In all honesty she wasn’t sure.  Things had been left hanging since the last time she’d been in here.  She remembered the look on his face when he’d confessed to her just how deep and longstanding his treachery had been.  Maybe he was avoiding her, too ashamed to face her again, certain that she would want nothing more to do with him.  It wasn’t like Remy, but then, this Remy wasn’t exactly like the Remy on the outside anyway.

            Not that she was entirely sure what the Remy on the outside was _like_ anymore.

            “We didn’t argue,” Rogue spoke awkwardly. “Just… things have got kinda complicated on the outside…”

            Rachel nodded.

            “I kinda guessed.  What with Gambit gone and you banging on the old lady’s door…  Anything I can do to help?”

            Rogue was almost surprised at that; she had to remind herself that this Rachel was not the Rachel she had parted from, the one who had made it clear they were no longer friends and probably wouldn’t ever be again.  She held back her own swell of shame.

            “Nah.  It’s okay.  Ah’d ask yah to call me if y’ see Gambit around, but Ah don’t even know if you’ll be able to get hold of me the way things are goin’ on out there.”

            There was concern on Rachel’s face.

            “It’s bad, isn’t it,” she said. “I mean… I saw the other two coming in.  They weren’t even moving.  I thought they were dead, but then, they’re psyches, right?  How can they be dead?  Anyway,” she frowned, and Rogue realised she was talking about Leech and Sage, “they freaked me out some.  I went back inside.  When I came out again, they were gone.”

            “Gone?”

            “Uh-huh.  Like they’d never been here.  Thought maybe I was going crazy, but, well… this is a weird place.  I guess weird things happen all the time…”

            Rogue looked about her again.  It was too difficult to tell right now where the psyches of Sage and Leech might be hidden; but their disappearance would account for the fact that she hadn’t experienced much of the after effects of absorbing them.

            “You think Remy put them away for me?” she wondered out loud.  Rachel shrugged again.

            “Possible.  Like I said, I haven’t seen or spoken to him in a while…” She halted, and Rogue chewed on her lip.  This was the first time in a long time that she’d felt totally out of control.  Irene had told her to sit tight, let this all happen around her.  But for how long?  She’d come here with the intention of getting one last word of reassurance from her, but that wasn’t happening.  And Rogue didn’t like just sitting back and letting things happen, not when she was as vulnerable as this.  She needed something as a failsafe, as backup.  Gambit was usually good at providing that.  But now he was nowhere in sight.

            “Actually,” she began again thoughtfully, “I _do_ have a favour to ask.”

            “What?” Rachel asked. “If I can help…”

            “Just… Ah need to have access to your powers, if you can do that.  Truth is, Ah don’t even know if Ah’ll be able to access my own powers when Ah wake up, but if Ah do…”

            “Sure.” Rachel shrugged again casually; Rogue realised it had been a habit of hers as a child, but something the older Rachel – the Rachel she’d spent that time with at the vacation house with Remy – had never really done. “It’s all yours, Rogue.  If there’s anything more I can do to help…”

            “Ah’ll let you know,” Rogue assured her.  She paused.  There was a strange sensation coming over her; an impression of something tugging lightly at her skin in quick, teasing pinpricks. “It may haveta come to that.”

            The feeling was getting more and more insistent, and suddenly she realised what it meant.  She was waking up; but this was no easy, natural transition into consciousness.  This was entirely against her will.

            “Damn,” she muttered.  The pull was all over her now, rough and unrelenting.  The world around her was going choppy, like a digital signal breaking up.  She saw Rachel’s face in frames per second, alarm growing on her features moment by moment. “Ah gotta go now,” Rogue told her, but she only heard the words as if they were in her own head – she had no idea if she’d said them or not.  There was no point in fighting this. 

            So she spread out her arms and let whatever it was take her.

 

*


	11. Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Best laid plans don’t always work out the way you want them to. Sometimes you come up against an opponent whose had your number since day one.

            The first thing she saw was Remy’s face; eyes in the darkness, peering down at her expectantly.

            She was back on the gurney; once again the nullifier was round her neck.  She immediately knew where it was she was going.  She half sat up, alarmed, held down only by the straps about her limbs.  She’d never woken up feeling this alert before.  All her wits were about her.  She was wide awake and more.

            “I gave you a stimulant,” Remy told her, seeing her sudden confusion. “I need you awake.”

            “You do, or Essex does?” she asked coldly.  Not a blink of the eye, not a twitch of the lips touched his face.

            “Does it matter?” he asked evenly.

            “No,” she answered softly, bitterly. “Ah guess not.”

            He made no more attempt at conversation, but focused on the corridor ahead of him, the line of his mouth thin and taut.  She saw now what she had failed to register before – walls of dark titanium, practically impenetrable, the kind of impersonal and functional design reserved for government bunkers or NASA test facilities.  She’d been in a few.  None of them had been half as creepy as this place though.

            “Ah ain’t gonna cooperate, y’know,” she told him defiantly. 

He didn’t even look at her.

            “Wouldn’t expect any less from you, Rogue.”

            The gurney came to a halt.  The door she now faced was also made of titanium; Remy scanned in his palm print; the door unlocked and slid open.  He wheeled her in as before, flicked on the lights.  As soon as he had undone her bindings she sat up and rubbed her sore wrists.  Without the haze of the drugs, everything hurt.  Her arms, her legs, her stomach, her head… Everything.  The collar round her neck chafed; even the thin paper gown grated the rawness of her skin.  She fingered it gingerly.  Her first estimation had been right.  No chinks, no weaknesses.

            “Issa waste o’ time, Rogue,” he told her. “You could fight, if’n you wanted to.  Like I said, I wouldn’t expect any less.  But you might as well save your strength.  You’ll be needin’ it.”

            “Oh yeah?” She slid off the trolley and glared at him. “For what?  So Ah can do this?”

            She swung at him, faster than thought; her fist connected with his jaw with a satisfying _smack_.  It was far from enough to deck him, but he was surprised enough for Rogue to relish the hit.  She raised her arm for another strike, but this time he was ready for her, catching her wrist easily as it fell.

            “Don’t do dis, _chere_ ,” he warned her calmly. “I don’t wanna haveta hurt you.”

            “Oh really?” She pushed against his grasp, itching to connect again. “Too late, sugah – you already did!”

            She gave up with that arm, lashed out with the other; but he caught that one just as easily.

            “I mean it, _chere_ ,” he grunted, and she was glad to see that she was putting up enough of a fight to make him break out a sweat; she hoped he was regretting the stimulant right about now. “You have no idea what I’m capable of now.  I could kill you where you stand.”

            “So do it, Remy!” she bit back at him. “It’d be better than goin’ through one more day of what that monster has in store!”

            She dug her foot into his abs and kicked hard.  He hadn’t been expecting _that_ either.  He staggered back, hitting the computer console, loosening his grip on her as he did so.  She turned, picked up the syringe that was still lying on the gurney, the nearest weapon to hand.  There wasn’t even the slightest hint of fear on his face as she advanced on him, the needle raised in her fist, even if he knew it was a lethal weapon in her hands.  If anything he looked amused.

            “Dat’s one t’ing I love about you, _chere_ ,” he bantered appreciatively. “Give you half an inch and you don’t just take de mile.  You _make_ de whole damn fuckin’ mile.”

            “This ain’t no joke, Cajun,” she retorted acidly, now only within a couple of feet of him. “Ah’m seriously considering whether to take your eye out with this, or whether to just shove it right through your heart.  Maybe Ah’ll just go for the first option – Ah ain’t convinced you have a heart to hurt.”

            There it was – that sexy half-smile of his.  Thinking he could charm her out of making him suffer the way she had.  He was _infuriating_.

            “Much as I’d like to tussle wit’ you, Rogue, I’m afraid de fun would be over before it’s even begun.  Essex will be here any minute now.”

            And that _really_ made her mad.

            “Yah think Ah give a flyin’ fuck whether he comes or not?!  Ah’ll kill him too!  The more the merrier!”

            There then gone; the smile vanished from his lips in a flash.

            “ _Non_ , you won’t.” He glanced at the syringe in her hand; just a mere flick of the eyes as she advanced closer and closer towards him. “And I can’t have you messin’ wit’ de plan.”

            He blinked; and she came to a sudden halt as the needle in her hand started to glow a bright pink, the weapon vibrating with that familiar high-pitched thrum.  She gaped at it as if it were something contagious.

            “What the _fuck_?!”

            _He didn’t even touch it!_

            “Drop dat and it goes _boom_ ,” he informed her casually, smugly. “Hell, you might t’ink dat’s a good idea, but you might as well wait till Sinny comes.”

            She stood there, transfixed, knowing that the slightest move could set it off.

            “How the _hell_ —?”

            “Did I do that?  Simple.  I just thought it.” He finally pushed himself off of the console and walked right up to her, so close that he was within about an inch of her, right inside her space. 

            “Damn you, Cajun!” she ground out from between gritted teeth, the ticking time bomb in her hand the only thing preventing her from planting another fist on his face. “Ah’m a woman on the edge right now, and Ah’m more than willin’ t’ risk mah shitty life takin’ y’all down if Ah haveta.”

The words were softly spoken, but held such an undercurrent of charged ferocity that he didn’t doubt her sincerity for a moment.  His expression darkened into something hard and dangerous.

            “I’m askin’ you nice, Rogue,” he murmured in a low undertone. “You play dis rough, it ain’t gonna turn out pretty.  I don’t _need_ to touch to use my powers anymore.  All I need is a thought; all I need is to _want_ it.” He paused, assessing her mutinous stare, seeing her tremble at his closeness, at the veiled implication of his words. “And my powers ain’t just restricted to inanimate objects either,” he continued, his eyes flickering. “I can charge organic material too.  Dat means pretty much _anyt’ing, p’tit._   No limits.” He reached out and flipped a lock of white hair casually between his fingers, insinuating, as he did so, just how easy it would be to burn her up.  He held her eyes meaningfully, speaking again only when he was certain his words had sunk in. “So you see, Rogue,” he finished quietly, seriously, “it ain’t a good idea to mess wit’ me right now.  You might as well save yourself the bother.  Cooperate, and you won’t get hurt.”

            Hurt?

            _Hurt_?

            The word echoed shrilly in her mind.

The idea that she could be hurt more than she already was almost made her choke back a bitter laugh.  The only thing she had left was defiance, and she was ready to give it to him in spades if she had to.  After all the pain of his betrayal, his threat of physical harm only served to further hone the sharpened sense of wounded indignation burning away inside of her, and she _wanted_ him to feel it.

            “ _Take. Your. Hand. Offa me,_ ” she demanded fiercely, her voice shaking with barely suppressed rage.  He saw the seriousness in her eyes; only then did he draw back his hand and take a step away.  It wasn’t even close to being far enough.  She stood there, trembling powerfully, still holding the charged syringe in her hand.  He suddenly seemed to remember it; he reached out with his left hand and gently worked it out of her grasp, simultaneously releasing the charge from it as he did so.  He calmly laid it on top of the console behind him while she let her body finally relax, allowing herself to breathe deep.  He stood, waiting for her to gather herself, making no sound, making no move.

             “Sinister restored your Omega level powers,” she murmured at last, in a voice that still trembled.  He nodded.

            “ _Oui_.”

            She bit back the urge to swear.  How could she untangle this?  This fate that now seemed closer than ever?

            “I’m sorry, Rogue,” he apologised when he saw her expression, in a tone that nevertheless did not indicate regret. “Dis is de way it has t’ be.”

            “Bullshit,” she muttered. “Ah don’t believe it.”

            He looked frustrated, contemptuous even.

            “Believe what you want, Rogue.  Don’t make a lotta difference now.  Like I said, you _could_ put up a fight if you wanted.  But I don’t t’ink you’d stand much of a chance.”

            “You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” she hissed at him.

            “Wouldn’t I?” He raised an eyebrow at her; before she could even answer the butterfly pendant round her neck was jangling at her chest, glowing in the brilliant pink light of his energy signature, keeping her still, preventing her from carrying out her threat and making a move against him. “I killed a man once,” he told her matter-of-factly, his eyes on hers, his expression now open, honest. “A man I hated, and who hated me.  De brother of de woman I loved.  He tried to tear us apart.  So I killed him.  I burned him alive.  For her.”

            “Belladonna,” she whispered, and the butterfly shuddered, beat its silver wings against her heart…

            “ _Oui_ ,” he nodded soberly. “And you know what de irony was?  In gettin’ him outta de way _I_ was de one who drove her away and fucked up my life wit’ de Guild, ended everyt’ing I’d known and loved.  I regretted what I did.  I was a kid back den, I let my emotions control my powers.  What makes me stronger today is knowin’ when _not_ to use my powers.  It ain’t about _darin’_ t’ do t’ings, Rogue.  It’s about being ready t’ do them at de _right time_ , whenever needed.” He reached out then, without any insinuation, only with the same honesty with which he had confessed the truth to her, the one mistake that had guided so much of his life.  He cupped his hand over the butterfly pendant at her breast, and in the heat of his charge it danced against her skin as though it were alive.

            “Don’t ruin dis, _chere_ ,” he murmured, and it was the sincerity in his words that captivated her, not their charm. “Don’t make me make de choice to hurt you.  I don’t wanna haveta do dat, but I will, if it comes to it.  I _would_ dare.”

            The conversation was interrupted by the door of the gangway beginning to slide open, and yet again Remy took a step back, then another.  He never once took his eyes from hers, nor did he release the charge on the butterfly pendant at her neck.  She held in a shallow breath, trying to read what she saw in his eyes, even as tears of hurt and rage gathered behind her own.

            “You’re early,” Essex’s voice rasped above them.  Remy finally tore his gaze away, looked up.  Essex was walking along the gangway, looking down on them with narrowed eyes.  When he saw the charged necklace at her throat, he paused. “Hmmm.  What have we here?”

            “She came at me wit’ a syringe,” Remy explained nonchalantly. “Had to figure out a way to keep her still.”

            Rogue didn’t deign to open her mouth.  She let Sinister think what he wanted to think as he walked down the stairs towards them.

            “Excellent,” he praised her gleefully. “Of course this does not surprise me – I would not have chosen you, Rogue, if I had not thought you resourceful and endlessly creative in your choice of attack.  These are all skills that will work to the benefit of my future army.”

            “Are yah deaf?” Rogue spat at him belligerently. “Ah told you – Ah ain’t gonna head no army for yah.  And if yah tried to make me – well, Remy can just burn me up if he wants, like he’s threatened to.  Ah ain’t yours to mess with, Essex!”

            “Indeed.” Essex’s expression was withering. “You are quite stubborn.  And these are all excellent qualities in a soldier – persistent, tenacious, dogged determination.  However, I am beginning to see that there is one major flaw that you possess – and that is your natural wilfulness.  It is of no use to me.  Had you remained in my care throughout your infancy, perhaps I would have been able to limit its effects.  As it is, it is quite impossible now to convince you of the advantages you would gain in submitting to me.”

            “And it took you this long to work that out?” she asked sarcastically; Sinister chuckled.

            “LeBeau first drew me to that conclusion.  He pointed out to me that you were most unlikely to cooperate in this little project to make you the sum and total of my collection.  I asked him if he could convince you that your talents would be best served here.  He did not think convincing you would be possible.  I have come to agree with his assessment.”

            Rogue sensed that she was not the only one surprised by this revelation.  Remy’s expression showed that he, too, hadn’t expected it.  His brow was furrowed as he watched Sinister produce a small vial from the pocket of his lab coat.  The liquid in it was clear, viscous, the consistency of a serum.  It filled up only half of the glass vessel.

            “The answer to this little conundrum came quite suddenly to me – suddenly and simply,” Essex explained, gazing at the vial between his fingers lovingly. “Until that moment, I had assumed that the best I could do was work with the shoddy goods I had.  But then, it hit me.  I had been working on the assumption that you are unique, when, in fact, you are not.”

            He laughed quietly to himself once more, as if marvelling in the maelstrom of his own genius.

            “And so I took the liberty of obtaining a genetic sample from you,” he continued blithely. “I would then have the opportunity to make a _new_ you.  Of course, this new you, this _clone_ , would not have all the many years of experience and training that you have obtained.  But this would not altogether be a _bad_ thing.  It would afford me the chance to mould you to my own desires, just as I originally intended.  And eventually, perhaps, I could create an entire army of _you_.  Just think of it, Rogue,” he lilted menacingly. “Think of the power that would be in the hands of the man that controlled your clones.  They would be a walking war machine, able to access the sum total of _all_ mutant powers on a whim.  They would be awesome and terrifying.  The statics will worship before my feet as they lie in the wake of utter destruction you will wreak!”

            Rogue listened, unimpressed by what now seemed very clear to her were nothing more than the ravings of a mad man.

            “There’s one thing you forgot, Sinister,” she reminded him quietly. “And that’s the fact that Ah have psyches in mah head that belong to people who ain’t here anymore.  Cyclops and Jean Grey are in here.” She touched her temple. “You can make all those clones absorb the rest of your collection, but they’ll only have half of what Ah’ve got.  They’ll never be _unique_ , not like me.”

            “On the contrary, my dear Rogue,” Sinister rejoined silkily, “I forgot no such thing.  Your part to play in this is not quite done.  Not by a long way.  If I cannot convince you to cooperate, then you shall simply _join_ my collection.  And _your_ clones will absorb you and every psyche that you possess upon their birth.  _Your_ legacy will remain here, in this very room.  You will be the fountain they drink from, endless and un-aging and quite perfect.  This is why I have brought you here today.  To take your place in my unique collection and to become the mother of my army.”

            He swivelled, turning towards the wall of bodies that surrounded them. “Gambit,” he ordered, the fervour in his tone now cold, “bring down an empty tank for our guest here.”

            There was a pause, during which Rogue’s mind raced wildly, rabidly for some way out of this, knowing instinctively that Irene would never, _could_ never have wanted this for her…  If only Remy didn’t have her by the balls with his damned charge turning the one precious item she possessed into an explosion just waiting to happen… …

            “No,” his voice cut through the frenzied working of her mind, clear and firm and self-assured.  Rogue sucked in a quick breath, glanced over at him in confusion.  He did not return the look.  His eyes were on Essex, calm and grave.  Sinister halted in his tracks, but did not turn.

            “ _What_?” he spoke in a voice like daggers.

            “I said no,” Remy replied dispassionately. “Dis gone far enough.  I’m ending it.”

            Sinister whipped round, his eyes burning, a sibilant hiss emanating from his lips; but before he could speak or make any further move, the vial in his hand began to glow an intense pink; and Rogue felt a wellspring of emotion surge through her – confusion, anger, surprise – a slither of _hope._ She realised that it was not the container that was being charged, it was the contents that were glowing – her own genetic material was bubbling, frothing under the heat, burning brighter and brighter, boiling more and more violently until the glass cracked and the liquid inside had vaporised.  Sinister glared at the now empty vessel as if unable to believe what had just occurred in a simple matter of seconds.  First realisation, then anger clouded his face.  A low growl sounded in his throat and he cast the broken vial against the floor.  It smashed at his feet, sending shards of glass skidding across the floor in all directions.

            “You are a fool, LeBeau,” he spat venomously; but Remy’s expression was unconcerned.

            “Dat’s a matter of perspective.  I’ve actually never felt saner in my life.” He unsheathed the knife from the belt at his thigh, tossed it in the air and caught it again deftly. Essex sneered at him.

            “So.  You plan to kill me.  How very _boorish_ of you.”

            “You gon’ try and stop me?” Remy returned lightly, running a fingertip across the edge of the blade, sending pink sparks flying off the cold metal.  He was confident.  Rogue could feel it, in the charge of the butterfly at her neck.  It was steady, sure, light.

            “I hardly think it matters whether I do or not,” Essex replied in slow, measured tones, in words that nevertheless held a wealth of furtive meaning.  Remy heard it.  The knife went still in his hand. “You must think me a fool, LeBeau,” Essex continued disdainfully. “Do you really think me ignorant of the hold this woman has on you?  You are mistaken.  As a matter of fact, I have been waiting for this weakness of yours to surface.  I have made… _provisions_ for this little eventuality.”

            He chuckled softly, ominously, and Rogue felt the charge in her pendant change.  It skittered against her breast, juddering violently, so violently she feared it would shatter if she even moved.

            “ _Remy_ …” she breathed warningly, and he suddenly seemed to notice her.  The next moment the charge had dissipated into thin air.  Finally free to move, she made a step towards Sinister, aiming to take him out of the game with a fist, with whatever she had available; but before she could bridge the gap between them Essex had whipped a remote control from his pocket, pressed a button.  A shock of electricity jolted through the ring at her neck, locking her limbs, tripping her nerves into a cascade of tightly focused pain.  Rogue screamed, fighting it, fighting with every ounce of her being, knowing that this was an impossible foe to beat.  Those few moments seemed to last forever before Remy charged the remote.  Essex let go of it just as it exploded in mid-air; the electric current dispersed, and Rogue fell to the floor on legs that could no longer support her weight.

            “Tut tut, Rogue,” Essex cooed mockingly above her. “Always in a rush to mete out justice to the fallen.  Lucky for you you have a knight in shining armour.”

            “Ah’ll see you dead, Essex,” she seethed up at him through the pain, but Sinister merely laughed.

            “I hardly think so.  Were you to kill me, things might look very bad for my dear, beloved son over there.”

            She glared up at him in disbelief.

            “ _Son?_ ”

            “What?  You didn’t _know_?” Essex expression was gleeful. “Isn’t it obvious, my dear?  Has he not just demonstrated to you the extent of his newly restored powers?  And they can far outstrip what you have witnessed today, let me assure you.  He is exactly as I made him to be – a son worthy of his father.  Such a shame that he has proved to be nothing but a disappointment to me.  Unruly, wayward, and completely lacking in self-discipline.  Capable of ruthlessness yet totally devoid of wider ambition.  Unable to see himself as a part of the bigger picture, that which paints _homo superior_ as the rightful rulers of this planet.  A selfish man who cannot see beyond the pathetic wants and desires of his own wretched life.  He, as you, has been spoiled by an outside world that appreciates nothing of the power of which you are capable.  You have served the enemies of mankind’s inevitable evolution well.  But never fear, my dear,” he grinned coldly, “he shall serve me yet.  It will be _impossible_ for him to deny me.”

            “Yah still think you can turn him round?” she shot back.  The pain was easing away from her, slowly but surely. “Even after everythin’ you’ve just said?  Why would you even want him if he’s that much of a disappointment?”

            “Because he is unique,” Sinister replied simply. “And because he is the son that was always _meant_ to have been mine.” He turned to Remy, who’d been standing, listening silently, throughout all of this. “Go on, Gambit.  Strike me down.  Kill me, if you wish.  It will only serve to fulfil my plans.”

            “I ain’t got no interest in killin’ you,” Remy rejoined decidedly, re-sheathing the knife. “Just let her go, Essex, and you can do whatever de hell you want.”

            “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, LeBeau,” Essex replied coolly.

            Rogue let out a growl of frustration.

            “For Gawd’s sake just kill him, Remy, otherwise Ah will!”

            “ _Non_ ,” Remy replied. “Not yet anyhow.  He’s right – killin’ him won’t make a difference.  He’ll just come back as someone else. He can’t _be_ killed.”

            There was that low, sardonic chuckle again, a soft and sinister soundtrack to Rogue’s sudden inner turmoil.

            “So you did your homework, LeBeau,” Essex spoke appreciatively. “Well done.  But I am afraid I cannot let Rogue go.  She is far too important to my plans.”

            “Ah’m gonna kill you!” Rogue snarled, propping herself up on all fours. “Ah don’t care whether you come back or not, Ah’ll keep killin’ yah till you _stay_ dead!”

            “Kill me and you kill your lover,” Sinister sneered down at her. “It’s as simple as that.” He looked across at Remy. “I have been preparing for your betrayal for quite some time now, LeBeau.  And so I took the liberty of setting up a simple form of security should such an event occur – yesterday, when I performed the operation to restore your powers to you, I added in a little something else as well.”

            As Rogue got to her feet she saw the look on Remy’s face change from quietly confident to dark and full of doubt.  His cool calm broke – snapped.  What control he had left in his features barely remained in place.  It was the closest she’d seen him to losing it in a long time.

            “You implanted me with your genetic memory,” he stated in a voice that also seemed on the verge of breaking into something untamed and violent.  Again, Sinister chuckled.

            “And the penny finally drops.  Yes – such has always been my plan.  Our genetic template is close enough for complete assimilation.  In you I shall have the power that was always _destined_ to have been mine.  Thanks to you I will be reborn as one of the most powerful mutants this world has known.” The grin on his face widened; Rogue saw Remy’s hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, his face livid.  Fear, anger, tension radiated from him like something toxic; she could feel him fighting an inner instinct to lash out, fighting the urge to see Essex twisting and turning in the raw flame of his power.  She struggled with the instinct – her innate drive – to join the fray, to _fight_ , despite not knowing for certain who was truly foe or ally; but there was nothing she could do with the dampener about her neck.  She was the loser in this battle of wits and she knew it.

            _Stay calm, Remy,_ she willed him to hear her.  _Just gimme an opening.  Just gimme an opening and Ah’ll end this…_

            “You have played a very fine game, LeBeau,” Sinister continued, turning away as if this round of chess had drawn to its long-awaited conclusion; “but I think it’s time we _both_ ended this charade.  I have, simply put, outmanoeuvred you.  Kill me, and you _become_ me.  Leave me, wait for time to take its course and lead me to the grave, you _still_ become me.  Whatever course you choose to take, I win.  _Game over_.”

            As he turned, that’s when Gambit finally gave her that long-awaited opening.  Rogue felt a low hum inside the ring about her neck; a split second later and there was the sharp sound of the locking mechanism giving way under the smallest of his controlled detonations.  The nullifier fell open and clattered to the floor at her feet.

            “Essex,” she called out to him.

            He turned back expectantly, and she didn’t waste a second more.  She was already channelling Rachel’s powers as he spun round and the psychic bolt had hit him right between the eyes less than a millisecond later.  Essex sprawled backwards onto the ground, half stunned but by no means out for the count.  He had almost scrambled up onto his elbows when Remy reached him.

            “ _Stay_ ,” he ordered, and Essex did just that – he froze mid-action, his body twisted in the effort to get back to his feet.  Rogue gaped as Remy casually took out his quarterstaff, extended it, and slammed it into side of Sinister’s skull.  Essex toppled over onto his side like a stone statue falling unceremoniously from its plinth.

            “About fuckin’ time!” Rogue snapped fiercely as he bent over Essex to examine the damage.  As he did so Sinister’s prone body relaxed back into a mass of ungainly body parts on the floor. “And what the _hell_ did you do to him just there?  It was like he was frozen in time or somethin’!”

            “He was,” Remy replied, standing upright.

            “ _What?_ ”

            “It’d take a while to explain.  Don’t t’ink I have de time.”

            “So why don’t you just do what you just did and _freeze_ it again?”

            He turned, smiled that lop-sided, humourless smile at her.

            “I could try.  Dunno if I would be able to pull it off though, not wit’out concentrating.” He paused, cast a quick look down at Essex’s unconscious form lying huddled on the floor. “Dat was de first time I even did it.”

            She stared, struggling with her thoughts and how to formulate them.  This was all too confusing.  She wasn’t even a hundred percent certain she could even trust him.  What if this was another ruse?  He saw her expression.

            “I’m sorry,” he apologised in a breathless burst; she saw on his face the haggardness that he must have been hiding so meticulously for all this time, and she wanted to feel bad for him but between all the hurt and the betrayal and the _confusion_ she _couldn’t_ – not yet. “You hurt?”

            “Ah’ll survive,” she muttered, rubbing the side of her neck.  It was sore from the tightness of the nullifying ring that had enclosed it. “Can we… can we just get outta here?”

            He nodded, turned towards the stairs that led up to the gangway, beckoned for her to join him.

            “Dis way.”

 

*

 

            He stood by the wall of his room and watched openly as she hurriedly zipped herself into the bodysuit he had kept ready and waiting for her all along.

            She was angry, she was relieved, she was feeling all sorts of things, and the fact that she knew he was checking her for any damage, any bruising – any _anything_ – was making it worse.

            “You okay?” he asked after a moment, nonchalant enough to tell her that he was more anxious than he was letting on.  She shoved a foot into a boot, zipping it up so fiercely she thought the zipper might break.

            “Ah’m just fine,” she shot back at him irritably as she clipped on her utility belt with more force than she’d intended.  Her tone clearly said _back off_ ; but he was worried enough to push it.

            “And t’ings up there… In your head…” He trailed off, but the implication was clear – he was worried about her.

            And _that_ was what finally got to her.  The idea that he had the _gall_ to be concerned about the state of her mind when he had been right there behind her, _forcing_ her to absorb Sage… when he’d stood by and watched whilst Essex had made her drain a kid dry and done _nothing_... It was more than she could bear.

            Without a single word she whipped round and smashed her fist into the side of his face.  Hard.  Harder than she’d first intended.  And once she’d started she couldn’t stop.  She didn’t care whether it had all been a ruse or not.  He’d _messed_ with her, he’d darn near stood by and watched her _die_ and it didn’t matter whether he was sorry or worried or not, she was _not_ fucking cool with it.

            “ _You – damn – fuckin’ – lyin’ – traitorous – SHIT!_ ” she screeched at him, pummelling his chest with all the raw force she could muster, knowing that it was a _lot_. “ _D’ya know what you almost_ did _tah me?!  DO YAH?!  And yah have the_ audacity _to ask me if Ah’m_ okay?! _Ah_ hate _yah, Remy LeBeau!  Ah_ HATE _yah!_ ”

            Somewhere at the back of her mind she realised that he was _letting_ her hit him, but she was beyond guilt at this point.  If he was willing to be her punching bag, she was going to take the opportunity with both hands.  Literally.  It was only when they both realised that she was gasping back on tears that he ended it before it could any more self-destructive.  As she raised her fists for what must’ve been the twentieth time he caught them, twisted his body, backed her up against the wall with it.  She struggled, still enraged, the adrenaline pumping a few more connecting hits from her; but she was exhausted, overwhelmed, and in real, physical pain – when he pressed his weight over her she couldn’t fight it.  She let him pin her wrists against the wall, let herself give into the pressure of his body. 

            There was nowhere to manoeuvre, nothing to do but put her face into his shoulder and curse and weep and wail uncontrollably.

            He let her. 

            He didn’t move an inch.

            He soaked it all in, every last drop of her pain and her anger and her agony.

            He took it all until there was nothing left in her but dry, heaving sobs and the drumming of his heartbeat against her own, beating out the untamed tempo of her anguish, drawing her slowly back to her senses.

            Its pace told her this was torture for him too.

            That his pain almost equalled hers.

            She gasped, shuddered, tried to fall into its rhythm.  Tried to let it calm her.

            “How could you?” she finally whimpered into his shoulder. “How could you do it?  After all the trust and love Ah’ve ever put in you… How could you betray me like that, Remy?  How could you hurt me so bad?”

            He said nothing, but a spasm shuddered through his body, as though her words were the worst kind of poison to him; but she couldn’t stay silent.  She needed to bleed this out.

            “Ah thought… Ah thought he was gonna kill me…” she wept plaintively. “Ah thought all those dreams that Irene had sent me of the future were _true…_ ”

            “Shhhh…” he murmured, putting his face into her hair, and she tensed, knowing that he wanted to soothe her, to ease her tears away, but unable to accept such intimacy when everything felt so raw.

            “Please tell me yah didn’t want to betray me, Remy,” she couldn’t help continuing. “Please tell me y’ never wanted t’ hurt me…”

            Something in the words stirred him more than any punches she could lay on him.  He released her wrists, drew his palms up over her cheeks almost feverishly, as if he’d feared he’d never get the chance to touch her again – and pulled her face back to look right into his eyes.

            “Never, _chere_ ,” he said hoarsely, sounding almost as feral as Wolverine. “D’ya hear me?  _Never_.”

            “Then why?!” she almost growled at him. “Why did yah do it?  Just t’ get your damn powers back?!”

            “Yes… and _non_.” He looked at her intently, desperately needing her to know, to understand. “Lissen t’ me, _chere._ Sinister was gonna be after us for de rest of our lives.  Don’ you see it?  He was gonna chase you down eventually. He wanted you dat bad. Raven hid you. I hid you. But you couldn’t hide f’ever. Killin’ him was de only way to be free and playin’ dis game was de only way to get close enough, to get him to trust me enough to get my powers back. I just… I didn’t bank on de fact dat he would graft hisself… onto his own fuckin’ son…”

            The words stilled her. Understanding came to her at last. He wanted his powers for only one purpose; to free them both of Essex.  She hiccupped drily, blinking away the tears, the rage; and this time he put his arms round her, held her close – so covetously that she almost thought the both of them might fall apart into a quivering heap on the floor.

            “Y’ dunno what it did t’ me, Anna,” he muttered, muffled, into her hair, “t’ see what he did t’ you, what he made you do.  Plan or no plan I woulda killed him slow b’fore I saw you dead, sweet.  You gotta believe dat.”

            And despite all the unspent rancour still seething uneasily in the depths of her, she put her arms round him, she held him tight.  She needed something to hold onto, to ground her, to make her feel human once more.  She needed to feel more than just a violated pawn.

            It seemed an age before she felt sufficiently together to pull away from their embrace; and when she did her heart lurched to see that there was real anguish on his face.

            “You ain’t his son,” she murmured, pressing her forehead to his and meeting his eyes. “It ain’t possible…”

            “It’s possible, _chere_ ,” he answered bitterly. “More den dat – it’s de truth.”

            She frowned, gazed at him intently.  His glance didn’t waver; she knew then – for real – that it was fact.  What got to her was the haunted look in his eyes – how it had obviously eaten at him, gnawed him right down to the heart.

            “How long have you known?” she whispered.

            His jaw tightened; but just when she thought he’d clam up he spoke softly, quietly.

            “I’ve known for a while now.  Amanda Mueller told me.  She was de progenitor mutant, as far as Essex knew anyhow.  He figured if de two of them made a kid together, it would be de greatest mutant to walk de planet.  Heh.  Sure as hell don’t _feel_ great, dat’s for certain.  Dunno what else dere is to say.”

            He lowered his eyes then, breaking their gaze despite their closeness.  There was shame in the movement, and for the moment it was enough to neutralise any lingering feeling of anger left inside her.  All that was left was numbness, exhaustion.  She let her body relax against the wall.  She let him hold her there.

            “You ain’t _him_ , Remy.”

            “But a part of me _is_ ,” he returned. “I gotta death sentence over me, Rogue.  I can’t escape it.”

            “We’ll figure out a way,” she reassured him, not sure how it was possible, but knowing that they had to _try_.

            “Heh.” He lifted his eyes to her again, and something like relief began to play across his face.  There was helplessness in his voice. “Tell me enough times, _chere_ , and I might believe you.”

            “We _will_.  We’ll get Forge on it or somethin’…” She trailed off; it was the only solution she could think of.  He laughed bitterly, shaking his head slightly as if in disbelief at her obstinacy.

            “Even dis one I don’t t’ink Forge can figure out.”

            They paused, silent, the soft susurration of their whispers spent.  It was in the lengthening, widening space of that silence that Rogue felt again just how much ground they had lost to this agonizing ploy of his.  She knew he sensed it too, in the way he held her gaze, in the way his shields were down, exposing his shame for her and all to see.  It hurt but she wanted to repair it.  She wanted to _try_.

            She tilted her face to his and their lips touched in a kiss that was tentative, hesitant, uncertain – a barely-there featherstroke of contact.

            Too much pain.  She broke away on an inhalation, hovered a moment.

            He hung back, waiting for her.

            And she leaned forward, tried again.

            No pretence at romance, no pursuit of desire.

            Just a trial at give and take, at closeness, at _trust_.

            And just when she thought it was beginning to _start_ to feel okay again, the distant sound of a door clanging shut startled them, drawing them quickly apart.

            For a brief second she saw in his eyes what she already knew – that it would take more than a kiss to fix this.

            “We should go,” he finally breathed.  She nodded. 

He took a reluctant step back and released her from the wall. 

Together they ran out of the room without another word.

 

*

 

            “So,” she asked, as they moved through the corridors as quickly and quietly as they were able. “Tell me, Remy.  Why the hell is it so important for you to get your Omega powers back from Essex anyway?”

            He said nothing for a long time – so long that she assumed he didn’t intend to answer her.  He was busy casing out the passageway ahead, his supple body moving with its usual effortless control – but there was something in his posture that told her that the question made him uncomfortable.

            “I told you, Rogue,” he finally replied, inching his head round a corner to check the coast was clear, which meant, conveniently, that he didn’t have to look at her. “I did dis for you.”

            It was enough to rile her to anger again.

            “Do _not_ tell me that all that bullcrap you pulled with Sage and Leech was for _my_ benefit!”

            He didn’t wince.  Instead he paused, swivelled away from the wall, and gave her a sidelong glance.

            “You’re right, Rogue,” he rejoined plainly, “I ain’t gonna hide it from you.  I pulled some serious shit, and when I pull de serious shit it ain’t for fuckin’ dimes and quarters.”

            “If it was,” Rogue countered in a low hiss, “Ah swear to God, you would not be alive right now! Ah would’ve stuck that syringe where the sun don’t fuckin’ shine and maimed yah where Ah know it _hurts_ you most for good measure!”

            _That_ was when he winced.

            “And I woulda deserved it, Rogue,” he rejoined, abashed. “I put your life on de line back there, and God in heaven knows it nearly killed me t’ haveta do it.” He raised his eyes to hers, and when he spoke again his voice was sombre. “You’re de most precious t’ing I have, Rogue.  And I gambled wit’ de most precious t’ing I possess.  Now you have an idea just how serious my reasons are for doin’ what I did.  It’s complicated, _chere_.  It deserves a lifetime’s worth of honesty.  And _here, now_ , is definitely not de time or de place.”

            She was almost – _almost_ – pacified to hear the earnestness in his tone.

            “So this was never about Sinister then,” she persisted heatedly, needing an answer, something to reassure her as to his intentions. “And it was never about bein’ on the side of the angels or the demons either, was it?  ‘Cos all it ever boils down to is _one thing_ with you, Remy LeBeau.  The only person whose side you’re on is your _own damn self_.”

            And his expression went still then.  He almost looked sad to hear her say it.

            “No, _chere_ ,” he answered softly, gravely. “I know _exactly_ whose side I’m on.  _Yours_ , Anna.  _Always_.”

            He turned then, as if overcome with an emotion he couldn’t bear to let her see, disappearing round the corner without another word; and whether she believed him or not, she had no choice – there was nothing for her to do but follow.

 

            He had obviously planned this down to the very last detail beforehand.  He moved ahead of her with tidy efficiency, taking out hidden cameras and dodging drones with the bare minimum of effort.  Doors had been set to open automatically as he approached and the escape route had been cleared of personnel in advance.

            Rogue followed, the clamour of her emotions outrun by the need to _get away_ from this place as fast as possible.  She wasn’t sure _what_ exactly Remy had been hoping to gain from regaining his Omega level powers, but she was satisfied, on some basic level, that he _was_ on her side, crazy as that seemed to her right now.  At least, she was satisfied enough that he would get her out of here as fast as was humanly possible, and that was all she cared about at the moment.  She could feel Sinister all around her in this place, prickling her skin and clawing behind every step she took.  It was almost unbearable and she wished more than anything that Remy would pick up his pace.

            “How long?” she panted after what seemed like forever, but must’ve only been a few minutes since their last conversation had ended.  He was panting too when he replied.

            “Dere’s a shortcut just up here,” he informed her, stopping as they came to a bulkhead door and letting the computers scan him. “We get through here, _chere_ , we’ll be out in about a minute.”

            “Shoulda known you’d had this all planned out ahead of time,” she muttered as the system finally cleared him, and he gave a twitch of a smile.

            “Yeah well… I’ve had a long time to think about dis,” he answered, just as the door swept open. 

            And on the other side stood Logan.

            There was a split second where they all stared at each other in confusion.  Remy lifted his hands, said: “Logan…” but no sooner had the name come out than the older man had pounced forward with a feral growl, bowling right into Gambit and knocking him to the ground.

            Rogue twisted out of their way just in time as Logan popped his claws with a sharp _snikt!_ , driving his fist forward for the kill, just missing Remy’s head by inches as he managed to lurch away to one side.  The claws punched the titanium floor, sending cracks spiralling out several feet in all directions.

            “Still weaslin’ your way out of trouble, Gumbo?” Logan snarled, heaving his bruised fist out of the ground and pulling back for another strike; the bruises on his skin dwindled to nothing in the space of mere seconds. “Try dodgin’ these!”

            “Logan!” Rogue screamed, catching his wrist and holding it back with all the strength she could muster in that moment. “You mustn’t!  He’s – he’s been playin’ Sinister!”

            “Playin’ Sinister?” Logan echoed in an incredulous bark. “You gotta be kiddin’ me!  He delivered you into that sick bastard’s hands, and you expect me to believe you weren’t hurt?!”

            Rogue didn’t have a chance to reply.  Remy had taken her distraction as a window of opportunity; she only realised the fact that he had charged his own bare fist a second too late.  It slammed into Logan’s face with a fizzing sound rather than a crack.  The force was so great that Logan went skimming to the other end of the corridor.  Fast as thought Remy was back up as nimble and graceful as ever, dancing on his feet, shaking out both hands with a loud _crack_ of his knuckles.

            “Go on, Logan, gimme another excuse,” he panted with exhilaration; sparks were coming off of his fingers as he shook them out either side of him. “Gimme another excuse to kick the shit outta you!”

            There was the hiss of sizzling flesh as Logan got to his feet again, an animal growl rumbling at the back of his throat.  Half his face had been burned right off where Gambit’s fist had struck it.  Even as his healing factor knitted the damage back together Rogue could see the rage in him, pulsing through the vein at his temple, in the blood vessels that were slowly stitching themselves back together.

            “I dunno what Sinister’s done to you to give you this edge, bub,” he scowled. “But I can tell you now it’s gonna be a fuckin’ waste of time.  You’re still gonna end up dead on the end of these claws!”

            “ _No!_ ” Rogue slammed both her palms into his chest, just as he was about to make good on his threat. “Logan, you gotta trust him!  He was helpin’ me to escape!”

            “Let us fight it out, Rogue,” Remy piped up behind her impatiently. “One of us will win.”

            “Yeah.  Let’s see how easy you fight back with these claws in you!” Logan raged, ready to meet the challenge; but Rogue pushed him back again.

            “ _Stop it!_ ” she shouted at them both.

            “Don’t worry, _chere_ , I don’t need to be face to face wit’ him to beat him,” Remy crowed gleefully. “I can kill him from here.”

            There was a high-pitched screeching sound and Rogue saw that Logan’s hair was a mass of glowing pink light.  For the first time since she could remember, Logan looked speechless.

            “So, Logan?” Remy began with a dangerous lilt to his voice. “You t’ink your brain can heal itself if I make your head explode?  I’ve always wanted to find out.”

            “ _Dammit, Remy!_ ” Rogue shrieked at him. “ _Stop this!  Now!_ ”

            “No, Rogue,” he yelled back. “He’s always wanted you, _dat’s_ why he’s always hated me!  He can’t stand de fact dat it’s _me_ you wanted!”

            There was a stunned silence from Logan, one that took him a full thirty seconds to recover from.

            “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” he finally muttered disbelievingly. “You think I’m _jealous_ of a prick like you?  Because I want _Rogue_?  Sure I don’t like your sorry ass, and sure I think Rogue could do about a hundred times better than you.  But that’s only ‘cos she’s like a kid sister to me and all I’ve ever wanted to do is protect her.  Guess we ain’t so different when it comes to _that_ , Gumbo.”

            The silence that fell was deafening.  Rogue held her breath, her senses filled with the high-pitched screech of Remy’s charge.  One second, two seconds passed.  The rage fell from Gambit’s face.  A second later and the charge too had dissipated.  For the second time in one day Rogue allowed herself to breathe.

            “All right,” Remy spoke quietly. “You wanna help Rogue, we need to get outta here.  _Now_.”

            Logan shook his head.

            “Not without Mystique.”

            Rogue glanced sharply at him.

            “ _Mystique_?  What the hell is _she_ doin’ here?”

            “Goin’ t’ kill Sinister.  Says she should’ve done it years ago.  I was s’pposed to be helpin’ her but the damn broad snuck off and I couldn’t catch her scent…”

            “ _Merde_ ,” Remy cut in; he was already halfway back down the corridor.

            “ _Remy!_ ” Rogue called after him, and he stopped and turned to her, still walking backwards as he did so.

            “Logan, you really wanna protect Rogue, take her outta here right now and don’t let her outta your sight till I come back!”

            “Shit, Remy,” she yelled at him, taking a step away from Logan towards him. “Yah think Ah’m gonna let you handle this all on your own?”

            “ _Chere_ , if I don’t stop Mystique in time, God knows what I could do to you.  Stay wit’ Logan, stay safe.  I’ll be back for you.”

            “Would anyone mind tellin’ me what the _fuck_ is goin’ on?” Logan quizzed, his tone starting to sound dangerously feral again; Rogue ignored him.

            “Remy!” This time she jogged after him, and he stopped like he couldn’t say no to her; she ran right up to him, and even if her feelings were too raw, too chaotic to allow her an embrace, she found herself grasping the front of his shirt as if clinging onto life itself. “What if you don’t come back?” she blasted desperately at him, unable to even entertain the thought of losing him again, despite all the damaged ground that now lay between them.  It was as if her reticence to touch him burned him to the core.  Unable to deny himself the connection, he reached out and ran his fingers through her hair, over her cheek and her lips as if marking her in his mind for the very last time.

            “Talk to Irene,” he answered breathlessly. “She usually knows what to do.  Or talk to de me in your head.  You’ll figure somet’ing out.”

            There wasn’t time for more; she didn’t have time to regret a final caress, a final kiss.  Before she could get out a single protest he had turned and was gone.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	12. Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tables turned, Rogue is now safe, but Remy faces the most terrible moment of his life and the only one that can save him is Mystique.

            Raven Darkhölme marched down echoing corridors, already splattered with the blood of a dozen foes.

            With Logan’s help it had been easy enough to find a way in here, and considering the mood they had both been in, if Raven had been a lesser person she would have pitied the chances of anyone who came across them.

            But Logan had been a means to an end.  He always had been.

            She’d had no intention of letting him get to Sinister.

            Sinister was _hers_.

            This wasn’t just business anymore.  It was personal.  And if her beloved daughter was dead… Well then, it didn’t make all that much difference, except that she would make sure Essex was mutilated so bad there would be no way to piece him back together again.

            She gritted her teeth and passed another wide open bulkhead door.  There’d been more of them the deeper she’d gone into this place, and she wasn’t entirely sure why there was no security but she was past caring.  It hardly mattered.  What she was here for was Essex, and if there wasn’t going to be any resistance, so much the better; even if, in her present mood, she was spoiling for a fight.

            She rounded another corner, gripping the knife in her hand till her knuckles were taut and white.  Her mind was a whirlpool of unappeased rancour, just skimming the surface of her tortured mind.  She knew that _somehow_ Irene had betrayed her.  It fed the fires of her rage almost as much as Rogue’s predicament did.  The fact that the depths of that betrayal were at present unknown to her made it worse.  It made her question the better part of her life – the one part of her life that she had always considered the most nurturing, the most trustworthy, the most stable.  She knew that Irene always acted for a _reason_.  But for the first time, she began to question whether that reason wasn’t just plain _wrong_.

            And Raven _never_ questioned, because she was _never_ wrong.

            That she could have been wrong to entrust _everything_ to her lover gave her a strange new feeling.  _Fear_.  And the only way to deal with that was to lash out.  With violence, with rage, with ruthless abandon.

            She sensed Essex’s lab before she saw it.

            The hum of computers, the stench of antiseptic, the sudden drop in temperature.

            She rounded another corner and found the door wide open.

            She stepped in.

            She stopped.

            She saw what she had seen in Alamogordo all those years ago.

            Row upon row of nameless mutants, Essex’s collection, his museum of oddities, his bid for both the ultimate army and ultimate power.  She knew it existed.  Had always known.  Irene had told her about it.  Showed her the pictures in the Diaries.  But here, standing in front of this carnival of horrors firsthand, knowing now just how many mutants he had gathered, how many Remy LeBeau had delivered into his hands… It sickened her.  And there wasn’t much that sickened her anymore.

            Something bitter stuck in her throat.  She half-turned and spat it out.  She stepped over the threshold and walked over to what she guessed was the computer mainframe, the control panel that turned this whole thing off.

            And when she walked up to it, she saw _him_ there.  On his hands and knees, half his face swollen and bloody, scrabbling over a shattered test tube on the floor, its contents spilled and lost forever.

            She halted.  Whatever it was inside her pushed at the roof of her chest and lodged there.

            “Essex,” she spoke in that stone cold tenor.

            He stopped as if shot.  He stared up at her with those burning eyes, his face only slowly breaking into an ominous grin as he recognised her.

            “Raven Darkhölme,” he greeted her with mock civility. “My, my.  It _has_ been a long time.”

            “Not long enough,” she assured him, the coolness in her tone merely masking the white hot heat underneath.  He showed his teeth to her, getting slowly to his feet.  He looked a mess.

            “I am afraid, Mystique, that I don’t have much time for this,” he informed her, brushing down the front of his coat brusquely; there was blood on it. “As you can see, I am currently rather… _indisposed_ at the moment.”

            She made no reply.  His toying hardly interested her.

            “Where is my daughter,” she asked coldly instead.

            A sneer curled Sinister’s lips, all pretence of jocularity gone.

            “Where else?” he answered in that voice as smooth and cold as ice. “Where else but with that ingrate thief?”

            Raven clenched her teeth, grasped her knife tighter.

            “What have you done to her?” she demanded, her voice coming out as a growl. “And if she’s been harmed, so help me God, Essex…”

            “ _Please_ ,” he cut her off disdainfully. “Spare me the grief of your righteous indignation, Raven.  The girl has been as much a pawn to you as she would have been to _me_.”

            She was gripping the blade so tight that she could’ve sworn the hilt was cutting into her flesh…

            “I _love_ that child,” she hissed; but Essex merely laughed.

            “Now, perhaps.  But do not deny that for all the years you and that blind witch knew of her she was nothing more to you than a means to an end.  People like her… That is all they _are_ and ever _will_ be.  Pawns in the hands of destiny.  It is the people like _us_ that take control of those pawns, that move the wheels of Fate.  You, more than anyone, know this to be true.  Do not mourn the loss of your daughter, Mystique.  She has served you well.  And she will serve _me_ well yet.”

            _That_ was what nudged open the floodgates.  It was not his posturing, his thinly-veiled gibes.  It was the _truth_ behind them.

            The knowledge that she had loved Rogue, had nurtured her only to make recompense for the suffering she knew she would inflict on this beautiful child.

            She advanced on him, the blood singing in her ears and pounding in her head, a guttural cry forming in her throat as she raised the knife to strike; but he did not dodge her, made no attempt to defend himself, and _that_ alone should have told her something; but she was past all reason, past all logic.

            “ _I’ll kill you!_ ” she shrieked, and still he made no move as she plunged the knife into his shoulder; she slammed him down against the control panel, flipping switches and sending sparks flying; the sound of a hundred tanks draining, of a hundred doors hissing open flooded the room in a rumbling sibilance, and she clutched at his throat with her talons, ground the knife in and screamed:

            “ _Where is she, Essex?  What did you do with my daughter!_ ”

            There was no pain on his face, no fear… only that maddening smile, teeth like razor-sharp blades glinting in the half light.

            “She is no daughter of yours, Raven,” he spat up at her through that hyena-like grin; she twisted the knife in deeper, swearing she could taste his blood in her mouth, see it in her eyes…

            “ _Where is Rogue?!_ ”

            And she knew it, she knew that there was _desperation_ in her words now, that she was giving it away… but she _had_ to know, if not for love then for the future of _everything_ …

            “It is too late, Raven,” he spluttered derisively at her, still no shame, still no contrition, no fear… “She will _always_ be mine now.”

            Whatever sound came out of her mouth then, it was barely human.  She wrenched the knife from his shoulder, raised her arm to strike once more—

            And a hand caught her wrist, staying her with a tenuous strength.

            “You don’t need t’ do dis, Mystique,” came the voice of Remy LeBeau, low and urgent. “She’s okay, Raven.  She’s okay.”

            She paused, without knowing quite why.  Essex had gone quiet, his expression now closed, watchful.  Waiting for something… And she darted a glance at the man who now stood beside her, the handsome face now lined with pain, with fear… with everything she needed to see on Essex’s face but that wasn’t.

            “Why should I believe you?” she seethed at him, resisting the pressure of his grip on her arm, the knife longing to connect to flesh and sinew once more. “You lied to me.  You told me you’d protect her.  And yet you delivered her to this _fuck_!”

            “It had to be done,” he ground out, his voice taut as a bowstring. “And you _know_ dat some t’ings _have_ t’ be done, Mystique, however bad they are.  But she’s okay now.  Anna’s okay.  I gave her to Logan.  She’ll be safe, Mystique.  I promise you.”

            His breath was coming hard and fast, like he could barely get one exhalation out over the other.  It was the first time she’d seen it.  He was scared.  He was pleading with her.  He was giving it up to her.  All the power he’d ever had over her and flaunted in her face.

            And she laughed.  She laughed to see how pathetic he truly was.

            “You are a fool, LeBeau,” she sneered at him, turning aside, her eyes catching Sinister’s again, those burning eyes dark and hooded as a viper’s, watching, watching… “You are a fool to think that I would ever be taken in by your silver tongue.  You have done _nothing_ but lie, cheat and steal from me.  The only thing I’ve had to regret in this life is that destiny _impelled_ Rogue to you again and again.  She is worth a thousand of you, a thousand of Essex.”

            She yanked her hand from his grasp, poising the knife to strike once more; but his hands snapped over her wrist again, and she felt the finest of tremors in his grip; she saw the panic plain and undisguised on his face.

            “ _Non_ ,” he shot at her, hoarsely, desperately. “I’m beggin’ you, Raven.  Don’t do dis.  You don’t understand what it’ll do!”

            Whatever it was – the sharpness of his anxiety, the imminence of her victory, the hatred driving through her – it incensed her all the more.  She growled at him like a wild thing.

            “I understand exactly what it will do, LeBeau!  Ridding this world of you and Essex will finally free my daughter of _everything_ that has hurt her in this life!  She will never _truly_ be safe until the two of you are dead and buried!  If you cared for her, you would _never_ have forced my hand like this, LeBeau!  You would never have _dared!_ ”

            She tried to jerk her hand away from his, but this time his grip was too tight.  The display of strength amazed her.  When she looked back to his face it was full of anguish.

            “I dared b’cause I love her, Raven,” he breathed in that broken voice. “I did it b’cause I _love_ her, godammit!”

            And she hesitated.

            She hesitated because she could hear it in his voice.

            He was telling the truth.

            For the very first time.

            She almost dropped the knife.  Almost let him have this moment, her mercy, her pity.  She almost let him have whatever reckless gamble he thought this was.  She almost let him have this love that she despised more than anything.

            And then Essex laughed.  A low, mocking chuckle that she felt between her fingers, the fingers that were still locked around his throat.

            The sound slammed her back into herself, into the red hot volcano that was heaving away deep in the centre of her stone cold heart.

            Quick as a lunging snake she snatched back her hand, swung the knife in Gambit’s direction.  The blade caught his chest, gouging a deep flesh wound to his breast but nothing more.  He staggered backward, stunned; and in that very same movement she raised the knife up high, swung it back downward in a perfect arc, hearing Gambit scream “ _No!_ ” in the background… And right on the tail-end of his scream the blade ripped into the side of Essex’s throat, rupturing the voicebox, cutting off his scornful laugh, and it wasn’t enough to silence him, it wasn’t enough for her to _end_ it – it had to be all or nothing, it had to be the cool, cold satisfaction of the kill or she could never face the world again without shame…

            It was what all three of them did.

            Killed without shame, without remorse.  Without feeling.  Nothing personal.  Just business.  Just what _has_ to be done.

            She dug the knife in. Yanked at it like a butcher slaughtering a pig, severing cartilage, carotid, oesophagus, sinew, skin.  Essex’s throat erupted with blood, spraying her face, her body; and she didn’t stop until there was nothing left to destroy, until she’d sawn clean through him and even the echo of his laughter had gone.

            So ended Essex.

            Beside her, Gambit dropped to his knees like a stone, retching like this was actually affecting him, like he actually _felt_ something for the monster.

            Raven tossed aside the still-twitching body of Essex; he rolled off the edge of the control panel in a welter of blood.  When she turned back to Gambit he was on his hands and knees, still choking.  She caught his shoulder with her boot heel, kicked him onto his back.  He made no attempt to resist, not even when she lifted a foot and planted it squarely on his chest.  He stared up at her, almost without comprehension, his pupils dilated, spittle flecking his mouth.  She looked down on him, contemptuous pity, Essex’s blood dripping onto him from her face, her chest, her hands, like some demonic rain.

            “Kill me…” he rasped, and she smiled down at him coldly, at the fact that for the first time she had truly bested him.

            “For once you get to keep your sorry life, LeBeau,” she proclaimed with the cool and driving judgement of a Fury. “You say you love my daughter.  I believe you.”

            She dropped the knife; it clanged to the floor beside him.

            “Don’t worry, LeBeau,” she continued unsmilingly. “I’ve done you a favour, after all.  I’ve rid Rogue of this monster – and I’ve rid _you_ of him too.  Let’s be brutally honest, shall we?  You’d never have been able to keep Rogue, not whilst _he_ wanted her.  And if Rogue is still fool enough to decide she wants you now, I’d rather she didn’t have to be with you looking over her shoulder every day, knowing Essex is right there behind her.  Would you?”

            There was no answer.  He barely appeared to have heard her.

            Raven sneered.

            She lifted her foot, thought about changing her mind.  It would be easy to kill him.  Easy to rid Rogue of him forever.

            But something stayed her hand.

            It was the knowledge that her daughter loved this miserable excuse for humanity more than herself, more than life itself.

            So she turned away.

            She went to the computer console and shut it down for the very last time.

 

            She left, leaving Essex’s collection with the hardest decision they would ever have to make in their sad, sorry lives.

            Whether to hide from a world that hated them, or whether to walk free and move on.

           

*

 

            Hours seemed to pass.  There wasn’t a single sign of Remy, nor of Mystique.

            Rogue sat on her bed with the fear growing in her every minute.  She’d hardly registered anything else since returning with Logan back to base.  She sent him text after text, knowing he wouldn’t reply to them.  Logan sat and watched her most of the time, mostly silently and patiently.  Other times he would pace the room as if her anxiety infected him.

            “We shoulda stayed,” he muttered half to himself at one point. “We shoulda _helped_ somehow.”

            She had explained everything to him on the way back and long after they’d arrived back here.  It’d taken that long.  The thing was, she was starting to wish she hadn’t.  She wasn’t sure he really _got_ a hundred percent what was going on.

            “No,” she rejoined wearily, decidedly. “Remy was right.  If we’d been too late, you wouldn’t have been able to stop him.  He’s too powerful.”

            “I woulda _killed_ him,” Logan growled.

            “ _No_.” This time there was no trace of weariness in her voice. “He would’ve killed you first.  You _saw_ what he’s capable of, Logan…”

            The sound of doors opening and slamming nearby made them both start.  Rogue was up and out the door before Logan even had a chance to get to it.  He followed her out, barely managing to match her step as she raced down the corridors and out to the hallway.

            Mystique was standing there.

            She was covered in blood.

            Rogue came to a halt in the doorway, her mouth open with horror.

            “Remy…?” she began, not knowing how to formulate the question pushing at her lips, drowned out by the horrible, all-consuming fear of what she knew must be true.  Mystique started, gazed at Rogue as though she hardly recognised her.

            “Sinister’s dead,” she stated in a deadpan voice, just as Logan came up behind Rogue.

            “Tell me you didn’t just say that,” he intoned gruffly.  Her smile was frighteningly cold.  She upturned her palms and showed the blood on them with an icy pride.

            “It was something I should’ve done long ago,” she spoke with the self-assurance of the righteous. “It was something I should’ve done the moment Destiny saw what he had in mind for the mutant species, for _you_ , Rogue.  She held me back.  And like a fool, I obeyed.  This was just the righting of a wrong I made nearly thirty long years ago.”

            “And Remy?” Rogue asked in a hoarse voice, not caring about whatever whys or wherefores Raven had concocted for herself.  Mystique turned her eyes icily onto her.

            “I finally save you from the threat Sinister has posed to you _all your life_ , and the only thing you can ask me about is that treacherous _snake_?”

            “Where is he?” she pleaded, trying not to give into the very real fear that his blood was also on Mystique.

            “I left him in Essex’s base,” she finally retorted, her eyes flashing with barely concealed disgust. “Be thankful I didn’t kill him, Rogue, that I let him go free.”

            Her sentence was cut short by a bitter cry suddenly emanating from Rogue’s lips.  Raven’s gaze was frosty.

            “Although I would’ve been doing you a favour, if I _had_ killed him.  Just as I’ve done you a favour by ridding you of that wretched man.  You have no idea what he planned for you.”

            “No, momma,” she shook her head, trying to stop herself from wailing out loud. “ _You_ have no idea what you’ve _done_.”

            And she turned and fled from the room with only one destination in mind.

            Destiny.

 

*

 

            She found her in one of the guest rooms, sitting on the edge of the bed with one of the Diaries open on her lap.  She neither moved nor looked up when Rogue stormed through the door, trembling with an emotion so visceral she felt sure Irene could feel it in the air.

            Rogue slammed the door shut behind her, knowing that her foster mother had been expecting her, knowing too that she was fighting between a despair and a rage so deep and terrifying that she was in danger of completely losing her shit.  Hell, maybe she _had_ already lost it.  She wasn’t sure anymore.  She gulped in a breath and almost choked on it.  There was bile in her throat, ice searing through her lungs.

            “What do Ah do!” she shot out desperately. “What do Ah _do_ , Irene?”

            And the little old woman looked at her, sightless and unseeing.

            “What you have _always_ done, my child.”

            She nearly lost it then.  Completely.  The world careened like a carousel, white stars danced in front of her eyes.  It took a supreme effort of will to stop herself from screaming out loud and driving her fist into the door.

            “ _Remy is dyin’ and Ah need t’ stop it from happenin’ and so help me Lord if you don’t help me Irene Ah will_ kill _you…_ ”

            The words spilled out in a fiery torrent wavering with anger and torment, and she trailed off, teeth grit, fists bunched, chest heaving, battling with the unholy desire to make good on her threats…

            Irene’s mouth went thin.

            “I admire your heart, my dear,” she spoke quietly, gravely. “I admire your spirit.  But Remy LeBeau is _not_ dying, and you have little to gain in doing away with me. I must beg you to remain calm.”

            The buzzing in her ears was amplifying to a crescendo of white noise.  She felt it pushing at her chest like a volcano about to burst.

            “ _Calm?_ ” she screamed. “ _Calm?!_ ”

            She was past all reason.  She strode over to the statue-like figure of her foster-mother, snatched the book from her lap and gripped it between both hands as if bent on tearing it apart.  To attempt to would have been useless – the tome was too thick, too solid, too heavy.

            “Ah _hate_ you!” she shrieked, to everything, to nothing. “ _Ah hate you!_ ”

            She flung the book at the wall, and it struck it with a sharp _thunk_ before tumbling gracelessly to the floor, its opened pages revealing a double page spread coloured in violent reds and yellows and oranges.  Rogue froze, stared.  She stepped towards it, fell to her knees.  She ran her hand over the creased pages with her mouth open in a wordless scream of agony.

            In the picture, the city was on fire.

            And _he_ – Remy – was in the middle of it.

            She could not tell how many minutes passed before any words could leave her mouth.

            “Ah’ve done everythin’ you’ve told me t’ do,” she stammered, realising for the first time that tears were coursing down her cheeks. “Even when Ah doubted you, Ah did it.  But it hasn’t made any difference.  It hasn’t _solved_ anythin’.  Is this _really_ what you wanted to happen?  _This?_ ” And her hand trembled on the image before her, as if to touch it was to make it real, to acknowledge its veracity. “How could you, momma?  How could you lead me to this one thing, this one _man_ that means so much to me, and then take it all away?  Why did you bring us together when it has to end like _this?_ ”

            The silence was like a black hole, an all-encompassing void after the ringing that had screamed through her ears.  It was a long while before Irene replied.

            “I did not _cause_ this,” she insisted; and Rogue had to forcefully grit her teeth in order to bite down another surge of rage.

            “Don’t lie to me,” she hissed in disgust. “Logan told me the truth.  Kate Pryde _saw_ it when Rachel sent her back in time.  _You_ killed Senator Kelly.  _You_ murdered him with your bare hands.  You can’t sit there and _tell_ me that you had nothin’ to do with this.  Yah _can’t_.”

            Another pause; Irene’s reply was low.

            “I did only what has _always_ been.”

            Rogue shook her head bitterly.

            “No.  We _always_ have a choice.  _You_ taught me that.  And _you_ made a choice that brought us to this point.  Where mutants are oppressed, where Rachel’s gone, where Ah had to sell mahself, where Remy has to suffer like _this_.  Why did you make that choice, Irene?  Ah have to know _why_.”

            No answer.  Presently she heard Irene stand, walk over to her.  She knelt down beside Rogue and reached for the book.  Rogue removed her hand, allowed the older woman to turn away from the page that spelled out to her, so loud and clear and painful, what Remy was capable of; what he was _destined_ to do.  She watched as the image disappeared and Irene turned to the very end of the book.  To the image of the Phoenix that Rogue had seen what seemed like a lifetime ago.

            She stared at it, a chill comprehension descending over her, a truth she could not begin to fathom.

            “ _The end purpose…_ ” she whispered, and Irene nodded.

            “Yes.”

            Rogue bit her lip.

            “Yah told me that before.  But Ah don’t understand what any of this has got to do with _that_ …”

            Irene sighed as if she had expected such a response.  She stood, crossed the room, her cane rapping neatly across the floor.  For a full minute Rogue counted out the disjointed rhythm of her steps until they came to a halt.

            “There was once a child,” Destiny spoke at last, her voice dream-like yet not without a trace of weariness, “a child who was sickly and lonely and had strange fancies.  She was alone.  She was afraid of _being_ alone.”

            Rogue heard the thread of bitter nostalgia in the old woman’s voice.  She looked over her shoulder slightly, seeing Irene facing the mirror, knowing that what she saw there was not what _was_ there, but a mirage of it, a mirage of moments flickering like candlelight, possible futures blurring, layer upon layer, on the glass surface, jostling for realisation, for the right to _be_.

            “One day that child found a friend,” Irene continued quietly. “A friend that hadn’t even been born yet.  A little girl just like her, lonely and confused and carrying a great burden.  The two of them grew up together.  And the child found out that her friend was special.  Very special indeed.  She _wasn’t_ just a little girl.  She was something bigger.  Something amazing.  Something frightening and wonderful.  She was _everything_.  When the _end_ was to come, she would be there.  She would turn the _end_ round on itself.  She would give us all a second chance.”

            The woman fell silent.  Rogue struggled with it.  The words.  The images.  And then she realised she didn’t have to struggle with it.  She’d _seen_ it before.  She’d seen it in the very moment she had first absorbed Irene Adler.

            “The Phoenix,” she murmured.  Irene’s reflection smiled sadly.

            “The child realised that things would not be easy for her friend,” she resumed softly. “That so much more than this world hung in the balance if her friend did not reach her potential.  She also knew she was the only one who possessed this gift – this _curse_ – to see what her friend was truly capable of.  That the _whole_ of existence lay in the palm of her hands.”

            She paused, opened up her free hand, stared into it as though to read her own future in its roughly hewn lines.

            “She made a decision,” Irene spoke again on a light breath. “She promised herself that she would help her friend reach that final destination.  She never realised at the time just how arduous her task was to be.  It led her to bitterness and madness and brutal sacrifice.  But she never faltered.  Stumbled, perhaps, now and again.  But she kept her path.  And she still does, to this very day.”

            She turned to Rogue then, her lined face grim.  Almost a challenge.  Rogue stared up at her, making the only conclusion she could.

            “So… you’re tellin’ me… That you killed Senator Kelly… to _lead_ the Phoenix to this _end purpose_?”

            There was no expression of triumph on the woman’s face.

            “At last you understand,” she said in that same grave tone.

            Rogue looked aside.  She touched the old, worn paper of the Diary before her and fought with the need to _look_.  To see where this was all leading.  She knew, with a crawling helplessness, that Irene was committed to this.  That whatever path Remy was on, it was the path Irene _intended_ him to be on.  It didn’t make sense.  She didn’t understand how _any_ of this could lead to anything good, but she had to trust that whatever Irene had planned, it was exactly for that.  The _greater_ good.

            “There has to be a way,” she murmured desperately. “There _has_ to be a way to stop all this…”

            And she knew Irene’s answer before she heard it.

            “No.”

            She couldn’t believe it.

            “Ah’m goin’ to lose him…” she whispered. “Momma, don’t you see?  Ah’m gonna lose him…”

            “You were willing to kill him once,” Irene spoke up from the sidelines, the words all at once cold yet curious. “You were willing to kill him for _this_.”

            Rogue touched the paper again, ran her fingers over the image of the Phoenix, the thing that was supposed to take all this pain and suffering away, and yet who was taking away from her the only thing that gave her reason to continue on this lonely journey called life.

            “Somethin’ changed, momma,” she stumbled over the words, her voice wavering as she struggled with all the heartache, all the betrayal of the past few days. “It changed.  Ah – Ah _loved_ him.  And he loved me back.”

She looked back over her shoulder at her foster mother, her mouth twisting bitterly. “Is that all it was, momma?  Just a means to an end?”

            And Irene was as still as a statue, her body as taut as bamboo.

            “No,” she replied with just a thread of sadness in her voice. “Never that, my dear.  Looking at all the strands of Time, Time that was and is and is yet to be… the two of you choose one another.  Over and over again.  And I… I simply took what already was.  I took what already _is_.  I took the choices you both made, and I forged the future with them.  And you will save him, Rogue.  You will save him, not because I have had a hand in making it so, but because it is _what you do_.  _Always_.”

            She walked over to Rogue again, picked up the book.  She moved to the bed with the air of holding a sacred relic, sat down slowly, and laid it carefully, lovingly, on her lap.  She placed her hands on the cover and Rogue could not tell whether her blind eyes were open or closed behind the rose-tinted shades.

            Nothing more was said.

            After a pregnant silence, Rogue stood up and left.

           

*          *          *          *          *

           

            Remy.

            Remy LeBeau.

            It’s his name, isn’t it?

            He lies on his back and stares up at the halogen lights of Sinister’s lab.  They burn into his retinas, his skull; but darkness gathers behind his eyes, shutting out the hurt, cutting off the pain.  He touches the bloody wound at his breast – but he’s stopped feeling it a while ago.  The only thing that hurts is the wound of this betrayal, a betrayal so deep it rends him to the core.

            Because he has been tricked.

            By rights he should be dead.  Raven should have killed him where he stood.

            But Fate has cheated him again.

            And so it should all be over now.  If you can’t steal from Fate you throw down your cards.  You walk away from the table.  You bow out gracefully. 

            This isn’t graceful.

            It’s ugly and it hurts.

            He reaches out a bloodied hand and his fingers find the hilt of Mystique’s knife.  He thinks of Rogue.  He thinks of everything he’s sacrificed for her.  This is just another thing.  Another thing to give up to her.  His life for her own.  It’s always been like this.  He’s always just been too blind to see it.

            Because he won’t hurt her.

            He won’t be tricked into this thing the Diaries say he must do.

            He loves her.

            He loves her more than his life, more than the texture of those empty days spent hustling and cajoling and seducing and fucking and getting high.  He loves her more than the sum and total of all those wasted days, and as he raises the knife to his breast he thinks that there is nothing more fitting he can give her than her own life and his own end.

            The blade of the knife glints in the light.

            And something stays his hand.

            Because he doesn’t _want_ to kill her.

            He never has.

            Kill Rogue?

            What purpose would that serve?

            He still wants her.

            He still needs her.

            _Just a little sample, is all._

_Then I can get rid of her._

            No.

            _No_.

            Think about it.

            Think about what we can make _together_.

            The two of us and our own little ( _grand_ ) experiment.

            _I always thought it would be interesting to see what Nature would come up with putting these two together… putting her and me together… putting Omega and Omega together… putting the two of us together … Omega and Omega… Together…_

            Just like Scott Summers and Jean Grey… …

            His grip slackens.

            I don’t want to kill her.

            I never did.

            _What made me think I ever did?_

            It isn’t just about love.

            _(Pointless distraction)._

            She can make me _stronger_.

            She can make me _better_.

            _(She can_ make _me…)_

            Together, unstoppable.

            Cold, hard fact.

            Logic.

            She won’t say no.  She loves me.  She’ll do anything I want.  I’ll do anything _she_ wants.

            _(Within reason)._

            And what if she says no?

            Well, she won’t say no.

            She never does.  Not to me.  She’ll come to me.  She’ll try and stop me first.  But she’ll see.  She’ll see what we can be together.  She’s always wanted it.  I’ll _give_ it to her.  I’ll tell her I was blind before.  I _was_ blind before.  I see it now.  I see what we can be.  I see what we can make.  The new world order.  The death of the Sentinels.  The fall of _homo sapiens_.  The advent of _homo superior_.

            And her and me, standing at the apex of it all.

            The knife clatters to the floor.  He walks from his lab dripping a snake-like trail of blood behind him.  He neither sees nor feels it.

            He is Remy LeBeau and yet he is so much more.

            He is a man who has lost and gained _everything_.

           

            And he walks towards it.

            He walks towards a page in a diary he has been running to and from his entire life.

 

*          *          *          *          *

-END OF PART TWO-


	13. The Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy is now under Sinister’s influence, and Rogue is left reeling. But before she can even come to terms with the first loss, a second one comes to pale the former almost into insignificance.

##  **PART THREE :** **ROGUE**

            Nothing but a sleepless night beckoned Rogue, and she lay on her back and stared at up at the darkness, the hours tunnelling, meaningless; the tides of sleep washing against her yet failing to draw her in.  The tumult of her thoughts was so chaotic that they hardly seemed to touch her at all.  She lay in some vast space between waking and unconsciousness, switching off every sense in the way Raven had once taught her to.

            And still he did not come.

            Of course he didn’t.

            She knew he wouldn’t.

            And though her resentment of him and everything he’d done to her still smarted, the horror of what she knew he must be going through scorched her like a raw flame.

            And so she chose not to face it.

            She didn’t even dare find refuge in the sanctuary of her mind.

            It was safer to be in the silence, in the darkness – no words, no sounds, no faces to trace, to hold, to wish for, to tell her that this was _real_.

            She hid in the silence of the night the way she’d done when she’d first woken into this cold, dead world so many years before.  Six months in a coma that had sheltered her from a world falling apart.  Six blessed months of nothingness that she now craved more than anything… …

            … …Hours passed, and she couldn’t tell whether she’d slept or not, but when she turned to her alarm clock and hit the light switch she saw the time flash 05:57.  The room was temporarily lit up with an eerie blue glow that winked out all too soon, shrouding her once more in darkness.  The spell was broken.  There was no shielding herself from this reality now.

            She punched on the low-light lamp and sat up.

            She chanced a thought of _him_ – cautious, tentative – and her stomach lurched sickeningly.

            _It still hurts, it’s still too raw, lie back down, girl, shut it all off…_

            She couldn’t.  She had to _do_ something.

            She rubbed her aching eyes and slid off the bed, pulled a sweater over her head.  When she stepped outside her room the corridor was empty except for a single light that had been left on near the Rec Room.  She shuffled in that direction, pausing momentarily outside the room Irene was sharing with Mystique.  The old woman’s face still haunted her, that expression more etched and lined than she had ever remembered it; and she wondered whether Irene was sleeping now, or whether she, too, was trying to hide in the darkness, trying to hide from all the pointless and painful machinations she had wrought.

            To stand there and dwell on it would have been futile, and so Rogue moved on.

            Logan was in the Rec Room, watching the TV from a battered chair with the volume down, a can of beer in his hand.  Not a word was said between them.  Rogue leant against the back of the sofa, followed his gaze.  It was the 24 hour news channel.

            “You’re waitin’ to see what he does, aren’tcha,” she murmured after a moment, and he grunted, not even looking at her as he took a swig of beer.

            “Only a matter of time, stripes.”

            She pulled at her lip with her teeth.  His voice had been hoarse, lined with less bravado than she would’ve liked.  He’d seen back at Sinister’s compound what Remy was now capable of.  This wasn’t sport to him.  This wasn’t just the equivalent of him sitting out listening to police scanners so he could join in on the fun.  This was him preparing for the worst.  This was him being so anxious that he hadn’t slept either.

            “So what’re you gonna do?” she half-whispered; he took another swig of beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

            “Whatever it takes to keep this fuckin’ place in one piece,” he answered gruffly, and she chose not to analyse the statement.  He knew as well as she did that when and if he came up against Gambit again, he didn’t stand much of a chance.  And he’d _always_ stood a chance.  That was why he wasn’t going to go down without a fight – because countless years of _winning_ had taught him never to back down.  Even when you’ve clearly been bested.

            “Logan, you ain’t gonna _hurt_ him…” she began, faltering when she realised that that was _exactly_ what he planned to do if it came to it.

            “Don’t ask me to promise you a thing, Rogue,” he retorted hotly, “cos – unlike your _boyfriend_ – I don’t go round makin’ promises I can’t keep.”

            The look – and the silence – she gave him in reply spoke louder than words.  So loudly that it got his attention.  He glanced over at her and found he couldn’t look away.  His eyes widened, first with surprise, then with something that was almost like contempt.

            “Don’t you gimme that look, Rogue,” he growled. “I know how you feel ‘bout that boy, but I ain’t about to forgive him for all the shit he’s put you through.  And _don’t_ you dare fuckin’ tell me he was playin’ Sinister the whole time,” he cut in when she opened her mouth to reply. “I _know_ what he planned.  And you know what?  What he did _still_ coulda got you killed.  He sure as hell got _himself_ into a shit load’a trouble.  So he throws a decent roll of the dice, I’ll give ‘im that.  But his damage control fuckin’ sucks, and I don’t like the way he gets so trigger happy putting your life on the line.”

            It was said almost breathlessly, and Rogue found she was almost taken aback by the vehemence in his words.

            “Ah trust him,” she murmured after a moment, and he snorted.

            “Even now?  Even knowing what he probably _is_ now?”

            “Whatever he is now, Ah don’t believe, deep down, that he’d really _want_ to hurt me,” she muttered, and Logan couldn’t help but burst out: “And yet he just _let_ you get hurt by Sinister over and over not even a goddamn day ago! Jesus Christ, Rogue, can’t you see that all he does is _take_ from you?  Don’t you _get_ that you deserve better?”

            The words were so impassioned that for a brief moment they were both stunned into silence; and the expression he gave her in those few short seconds was one she’d never seen before, one that she could put no name to.  Before either of them could acknowledge it, however, they were interrupted by a deep rumble as of faraway thunder; the room shook so suddenly and violently that the door to the Rec Room opened itself and several of the light fixtures swayed precariously.  Before the apparent earthquake had even petered out Logan had swung back round and was jamming up the volume, flipping through channels at breakneck speed.

            “What the hell _was_ that?” Rogue ventured nervously, but he didn’t even look at her, barely opened his mouth as he replied through gritted teeth: “ _Sentinels_.”

            “What? No… Sentinels don’t _sound_ like _that_ when they’re walkin’…”

            “Not walkin’, stripes,” he snarled. “ _Fallin’_.”

            She held a disbelieving breath as she realised what he meant, just as Jubilee came sprinting through the open door with her hair wild and her clothes in disarray.

            “Did you hear that?” she shot at them as first Pyro then Avalanche followed her into the room. “What the hell _was_ it?”

            “Back to bed, _now_!” Logan barked at her in reply, which, to her credit, she completely ignored.

            “I wasn’t _in_ bed!” she snapped at him. “I was in the med bay looking after Emma and Ev and Betts when the room started shaking and disconnected some of the drips… Forge’s in there fixing them up again… What the _hell_ is going _on_?”

            The tautness of Logan’s jaw, the wildness of his eyes as he glared at the TV made them all pause and follow his gaze.  CNN had just sent a news chopper out over New York, and the first taste of a panoramic early-morning shot of the grey and crumbling skyscrapers filled the screen, a bird’s eye view of the city that had long become their prison and their tomb filling them with an odd disquiet.  And there it was.  Smoke, heaving, bellowing from an indeterminate point in the sprawling urban jungle, a single charred metal arm wreathed limply over the roof of an apartment building.  A Sentinel’s arm.  It’s owner destroyed, spewing flames.

            The only word Rogue heard over the fearful babble of the news reporter was Logan’s barely concealed curse.  No one else dared say a word.  Not even Raven, who’d quietly slid into the room behind the others, her face pale and hard. 

            “ _No terrorist organisation has, as yet, accepted responsibility for the destruction of this Sentinel_ ,” the reporter was excitedly saying on-screen, “ _nor, indeed, do we know how such a feat was achieved.  But it would seem there is little doubt that mutants are indeed to blame.  And now we have reports that the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask, has been ordered to send more of his machines to the scene of this devastation…_ ”

            The camera panned out, and, true enough, four, five, six other Sentinels came into view from all directions, converging steadily on their fallen comrade.  Not five seconds later, the room was once again rocked by an overground explosion, this one nearer than before.  Another five seconds passed before the source became evident on the TV screen.  Another of the Sentinels seemed to have spontaneously combusted, exploding in an unprovoked fireball of flames and smoke and shrapnel.  Logan didn’t waste another moment.  This second destruction had hardly unfolded when he’d shot out the room, almost bowling Forge over upon his exit.

            “Logan… Wait!” Rogue yelled, following him out into the corridor and pushing past the others even as they began to talk all at once, one over another, trying to explain what they had just seen to themselves as much as to Forge.  Rogue ignored them.  She sprinted out into the passageway, skidding round the corner just in time to see Logan grab his leather jacket and shrug it on.

            “You’re not goin’ up there?” she shouted at him, and he shot her an exasperated look.

            “Whaddaya think, Rogue?  People are gonna be dyin’ up there!”

            He turned abruptly, storming towards the exit elevator, stark purpose in his stride, knowing she would follow; and she did, not because she had to, but because she was an X-Man and people needed her.  She was almost surprised when the others followed – whether for the same reasons as herself or just to enjoy the spectacle, she wasn’t sure – although she was fairly certain that none of them could quite believe that what they had witnessed on the news report was _real._   Let alone the work of one man.

            Of Gambit.

            Of _Remy_.

            She gritted her teeth and picked up her pace, hot on Logan’s tail.

            The elevator ride was quiet, painful, a thrumming space of baited breath, and she caught eyes on her – Logan’s, stern yet oddly pained; Raven’s, calm and piercing.  She avoided both.  When the lift came to a halt she strode to the door first, feeling those eyes bore into her head and her neck and her back, and she felt impelled, whether from the weight of their seeming judgement or her own inner dread, to move forward, to take the lead.

            The doors slid upon.

            And Rogue being Rogue, she stepped up.

            Acrid smoke and screams permeated the air; a lone man ran past her, panting, quickly followed by another; she swivelled in the direction they had come from, towards the main street – saw others running, panicked.  She hesitated, not quite believing her senses – first Logan pushed past her, then Mystique – finding the movement in her legs again, she followed.

            The streets were heaving, a cacophony of screams and cries and shouts, a tidal wave of agitated, gesticulating bodies.  As soon as she stepped onto the sidewalk she was jostled about, very nearly swept away – a man ran into her headfirst, grabbed her by the arms, shouting incoherently – she pushed him away from her, cleaved forward through the crowd once more.  Another man came her way, calm, measured – this time he reached for her with a grasp that was all too familiar, and without thinking she’d launched her fist into the side of his face, feeling his jaw crack beneath the raw drive of her knuckles; and he hit the sidewalk with a satisfying slap.

            Rogue paused, breathless.  The least sign of chaos and all sorts of trouble started worming its way out of the woodwork.  Looters, rioters, conmen, pickpockets – Logan was right – give ‘em an inch and they’d take a mile.  But she didn’t have time to take down the thugs.  Not here, not now.  Not when Remy was…

            She held the thought, turned and saw Raven nearby.  Without a second thought she plunged forward to join her, fighting against the current of people fleeing from a scene she couldn’t see yet but could smell.

            It was the stench of burning, the caustic, bitter reek of singed wiring, smoke and metal – pungent indoors, overpowering now that she was out in the street.  The taste of it was like acid on her tongue; she resisted the urge to spit it out.

            She followed as Raven weaved in and out of the crowds, some hurrying along in a state of extreme agitation, some gathered in small pockets talking amongst themselves.  There were worried voices, scared voices, confused voices, angry voices.  Words assailed her ears through the furious tumult, the scrambling for sense on the one hand and escape on the other.  _Mutie, attack, kill, revenge, payback._   It was the words – more than the smells, more than the wild pandemonium – that scared her.  She caught up with Raven just as they were about to turn a corner; the crowd cleared a little and she saw Logan a little ahead and to her right; Jubilee too.  As to the others, she had no idea where they were.

            Raven shot Rogue a look over her shoulder, a look that Rogue found impossible to read; they rounded the corner together and stopped dead in their tracks.

            The entire length of the road, and most of its width, was filled with the hulking mass of what Rogue recognised, after a short moment, to be a Sentinel.  It lay there, facedown, blackened, charred, its limbs bent and broken from its fall, still smouldering in places, its circuitry sparking in others.  The grotesquely amorphous features of its skull were twisted and warped in the heat of what had been an intense fire.  The sockets of its eyes were nothing more than gaping holes, the line of its mouth a melted mass of tar-like substance.  It seemed to stare at Rogue with an almost human expression of abject terror, the countenance of one in its final death throes, clinging desperately to life.

            No one made a sound.  There was no dirge to be sung for something so hated.  Not even the statics had stayed to mourn at the grave of the beast.

            “ _Holy shit!_ ”

            She turned slightly and saw St. John, Dom, Forge standing a little way behind them, aghast.

            “What the _fuck_ did that?!” Dom asked the question that everyone was thinking.

            Rogue looked back at it.  The smouldering remains of the giant, a husk of plastic casings, fibre optics and titanium.  A million dollars’ worth of killing machine reduced to nothing more than a skeleton.  It was awesome, terrible and frightening to comprehend Avalanche’s question.

            “Remy,” she spoke mostly to herself. “It was Remy.”

            “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” St. John interjected with an excess of sarcasm. “Gambit ain’t capable of shit like that.”

            “He is now,” Raven returned in a tight voice.  She turned, glanced at him askance with a grim expression.

            “Holy crapola,” Jubilee muttered under her breath, and, “Strewth,” Pyro added.

            “How is that even possible?” Forge cut in above the both of them. “He’d need to be in physical contact with something for several minutes to charge something that big.  _Keeping_ the charge going for that long, on all that mass… it would take an inhuman effort of will.  We’re talking Phoenix power levels here…”

            “Omega level powers?” Logan finished for him, half statement, half question.

            “Yes,” Forge conceded.

            Rogue didn’t speak.  She couldn’t find it in herself to explain all this.  She could barely formulate a thought at all.

            “Remarkable,” Raven broke out in a tone of wonder, a begrudging admiration dancing in her eyes as she took in the devastation before her. “He has single-handedly managed to achieve what the Brotherhood has not in nearly ten long years – no – longer.  Essex was right.  He could create a masterpiece of _homo superior_ , the most perfect expression of our kind possible.  And he _did_.”

            Rogue shook her head, her voice finally coming back to her.

            “He created a _monster_.”

            Raven looked at her coldly.

            “A monster, yes.  But perhaps that is what we are meant to _be_.”

            “Somethin’ that can destroy a whole city?” Logan scoffed without a trace of humour or wit.  His expression was closed, watchful. “If _that’s_ what we’re meant to be, Mystique, there won’t be a world _left_ for us to rule.”

            “There will be laws, Wolverine,” Raven countered calmly. “It is not my intention to accept a world where petty power struggles are rife.”

            Wolverine’s smirk was merciless.

            “Sounds good, Raven – for those in power like you.  And I’d sure as hell like t’ know how you expect to rein in someone who can bring a Sentinel down with a thought.”

            Whatever answer Raven might have made was interrupted by the thundering boom of another explosion several blocks away, closely followed by a chorus of yet more screams, cries of dismay and shouts of outrage.  And then the implausibly loud screech of creaking metal, the signal of some great mechanical edifice toppling, its sinews stretched to horrible breaking point, the almighty crash as it met bare asphalt…  The ground shook beneath their feet, and Rogue knew instinctively that another Sentinel had died.

            No one moved.  No one wanted to face another scene like the one before them.

            “This is bad,” Jubilee murmured beneath her breath.

            “Y’ think?” Logan muttered.

            “Let him kill the fuckin’ things,” Pyro remarked behind her, and:

            “Like hell Gambit can pull off something like this,” Dominic finished.

            Raven said nothing, staring at Rogue as if this were all her fault, or as though she might possess some magical answer to this conundrum – stay, let this play out; or go, and prevent the entire city from being torn apart.  And if the latter, go where?

            Rogue turned, began to walk.

            “Rogue,” Raven called after her in a tone she had so often used on her in the past – that authoritative tenor that both inspired and expected submission and respect.  This time, however, Rogue found she had none of either to give.  She swivelled, only briefly, facing her foster mother’s stern countenance with stark defiance.

            “ _What?_ ”

            Raven was unimpressed by the expression of insubordination, nor did she heed it.

            “Where are you going?”

            “Where do you think?  To find Remy.”

            And she turned and ran.

            Even if they had wanted to follow her she was soon lost once more in the crowd, and she knew they could never have hoped to have catch up with her once she was a part of it.  She had no intention of _being_ found by any of them anyway – she knew without a shadow of a doubt that _she_ was the only soul in the entire world who had any leverage with Gambit now.  And – it scared her to think of it – she wasn’t even sure if she had that.

            Equally, she wasn’t entirely sure where she could find him.  But she knew that seeking out his latest casualty would be a start.

            And so she ran in the direction of the second fallen Sentinel, or what she presumed could only be one – it was easy, since almost everyone was running away from that scene, and to find it she only had to go against the tide.  But there were others moving with her – those perhaps moved by a morbid curiosity, or a perverse desire to be at the centre of a disaster which they could later recount to spellbound and disbelieving audiences.  And there were others still – those who, like her, sought the perpetrator of this crime, but with motives of violence.

            Her feet pounded the pavement, a staccato rhythm matched by the hollow panting of her breath, a sound that seemed to fill her ears with a greater clarity than that of the world around her.  And then she, and the rest of the group of curious onlookers, stopped when they saw it.

            The same implausible image of a still-burning Sentinel in a state of rigor mortis, half crushed by the corner of the building that it had crashed into as it had collapsed.  It fizzed and crackled in the flames, its artificial synapses firing in a few final, futile surges of electricity.  She saw how he’d done it.  Not by exploding the outer shell, but by burning out the automaton’s vital innards – its circuitry, silicon chips, motherboards.  There was no point in expending time and energy on destroying a husk.  It was the insides – the brains – that mattered.  Killing at the source, quick and pure efficiency.

            Which was, of course, what Sinister was all about.

            She didn’t need to see more.  He wasn’t here, that was certain.  She turned, and when she turned she saw a group of vigilantes approaching the scene.  Friends of Humanity.  They were always armed, but now they were more than just ready to kill.  They wanted a scapegoat.  They were desperate for one.  In lieu of this unseen enemy they couldn’t find, they wanted mutants.  It could only be a mutant responsible for this.  Who else would want the Sentinels destroyed?

            The irony was, there probably wasn’t a single civilian in that city who would not have done exactly that, if they’d had the power.

            She would never be sure afterward how it happened.  Perhaps a movement, perhaps a sound, perhaps nothing at all but the madness and fear of that day.

            There was the crack of the first gunshot, the thud of a body nearby hitting the ground; the sudden flight of those gathered, as if a cat had been let loose amongst pigeons; her being jostled by that flight in the ensuing confusion; the second gunshot, the brushing sweep of the person next to her falling, almost taking her with them; and then the third, final shot, seeming to come from somewhere closer…

            And in that moment there was another somebody, stepping out in front of her in a motion that was both sharp and yet subtle, desperate and yet measured…

            It was only as that person fell against her that she realised who it was.

            Irene, whom she hadn’t even known had followed her and the others out of the compound and into the streets.  Irene, whom they had left sitting in her room, deep in the grip of her own tortured silence.

            At first Rogue couldn’t understand what had happened, and, as the crowd dispersed as quickly as it had first gathered, she took the woman in her arms in what she thought at first to be an embrace.  It was no embrace.  Even as Rogue caught her the old woman continued to fall like a stone, and Rogue took the weight, lowering her to the floor and instinctively knowing, before she saw the blood, that Irene had been hit.

            That Irene had taken a bullet in her place.

            Rogue gave a sickened cry of realisation as she saw the wound in her foster mother’s chest, a scarlet bloom already spreading across the prim white blouse she always seemed to wear.

            “Irene!” she gasped, expressing in the name incredulity, horror, helplessness, an almost questioning anger.  It was a surreal moment – for the past year the only contact she had had with Irene was mostly through the psyche in her head – an odd kind of relationship, one of bitterness and mistrust, at least from her side.  From all these dealings she had begun to form the opinion that Irene had been using her in some way for her own inexplicable ends – and yet here the selfsame woman lay in her arms, flesh and blood in all its weakness, giving it up for her.

            She sobbed, even as she understood that perhaps still, even in this, Irene was acting _against_ her and not _for_ her…

            “ _Why_?” she asked the word she had wondered so often yet had rarely ever spoken aloud.  She cradled Irene’s face in her hands, and felt, for the first time, the fragility of this woman that had lived through so many countless years, the bony, wasted architecture of a person who had given up so much to them.  And despite all that she had lost, _was_ losing, Irene Adler smiled.

            “For you, of course, Anna,” she murmured with a supreme serenity. “Always for _you_ …”

            “No,” Rogue shook her head hopelessly, her fingers pressing against the bullet wound, trying to stem the well of blood. “Ah don’t want _this_ …”

            “But you have it, Rogue,” Irene replied placidly. “You’ve always had me.  Do not think that I have not foreseen this moment.  I have prepared for it longer than you can imagine…”

            In the distance a different kind of sound filtered in on the warm, sooty air.  Screams, as if of infernal beasts writhing in torment.  It was impossible not to recognise them.  It was the Hounds, shrieking not in the usual way they communicated with one another, but in pain.

            Rogue knew what it meant.  That where the Sentinels had gone, they were soon to follow.

            “How do Ah stop this?” she asked desperately of the old woman, knowing, perhaps cynically, that time was short.  There was no reproach in Irene’s eyes.  To her the question was the expected one; it was the correct one.

            “You have the tools, Rogue,” she replied gravely. “Now you must use them.”

            “What tools?” Rogue persisted, thinking how strange it was that even now Irene should speak in riddles…

            “The tools Essex gave you… The tools he would _always_ give you… You did right to submit to him, though it took you nearly to hell…”

            Rogue looked down at her hand, the one pressed to Irene’s chest.  The blood was working its way between her fingers, relentless.  Her entire hand was painted red.

            “What do you mean?” she questioned, knowing how little time there was left; and then it hit her.  The answer to her own question.  She found she knew exactly what Irene meant. “You mean the psyches, don’t you,” she murmured in sudden enlightenment. “The ones Essex made me collect for him – Leech, and Sage – right?” The light in Irene’s eyes was dimming, and she looked quickly up and down the street, seeing no one but the prone bodies of two others near her, wishing for the first time that Raven were there… “ _They’re_ the ones who can help me fix all this…”

            There was no response.  Irene’s eyelids were drooping, and Rogue shook her gently.  Until that moment she never knew what it was to be powerless in the face of death, until she saw Irene Adler’s life slip away before her eyes, a life that had gone on so long she had always expected it never to end.

            “Dammit, momma, you can’t leave me yet,” she whispered fiercely, choking back tears that she refused to let fall. “What am Ah s’pposed to _do_ without you?”

            “ _Live_ ,” Irene spoke the word on a laboured exhalation of breath, as though uttering a prayer, or something sacred. “You cannot imagine, Rogue, how I have fought to make it so.  And you know too, dear child, that I am with you.” She reached out with a quivering hand and touched Rogue’s forehead tenderly, meaningfully. “In _here_.  You have _everything_ you need here.  Everything lies in your power, for better, for worse…”

            Her hands moved with the wandering aimlessness of the blind – the first time in her life that Rogue had seen her move in this way.  The wizened fingers touched Rogue’s lips, heart, belly; and then she smiled.

            “All is as it should be,” she stated cryptically as the breath rattled in her throat. “And at last my purpose is done.  Forgive me, dear daughter, for all the sorrow I have inflicted upon you in order to reach that purpose.  In my quest to make things _right_ I have done you many wrongs.  Can you forgive me?”

            She knew now there was no hope for her.  She took Irene’s frail hand in hers and held it tight.

            “Momma…” she choked and Irene gripped her hand with a final feverish agony.

            “ _Can you_?” she repeated, and Rogue nodded, realising, even as she did so, that Irene could no longer see – that her power had nothing more to show her but the threshold of death – that she was, for the first time in decades, truly blind.  She pressed the old woman’s hand to her cheek and said with calm certainty: “Ah forgive you.”

            And Irene smiled serenely, a sigh escaping her lips as if to lay down a final burden heavier than any other she had carried.

            Her features relaxed into an expression of fearless repose, of one well-satisfied that she had reaped what she had sown and could finally lay her head down to rest.

 

            And so Destiny rested in Rogue’s arms, the weary cycle of all the years she had lived brought to a close at last.

 

*


	14. The Risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rouge finally learns the reasons for Destiny’s manipulation of her for all these years, which leads her to take on the daunting task of finally facing Sinister-Gambit.

            It seemed to Rogue to be the only time she could remember that Raven could find no words to speak.

 

            When they’d found her – pale and bloody and with the old woman still in her arms – Raven had said nothing.

            And now, back at the compound, with all the world seeming to float precariously about her, she said nothing still.

            There was perhaps little to be said.  Rogue herself remained speechless, as they laid Irene’s body carefully on her bed, each paying their own silent homage.  On that day, as with the Sentinels and the Hounds, there would be no eulogies paid, no requiem sung.  The rites of the funeral had long since been abandoned.  It was not simply a matter of belief.  It was simply that there was no one left to perform them.

            When the others left, Raven stayed.  Rogue was the last to leave, caught between the feeling that she should go and the urge to comfort her foster mother.  She hovered by the bed, uncertain, sensing a gulf between herself and Raven that had never existed before.  When at last the older woman looked up at her, it was with a look charged with animosity.  She knew then that she was not wanted.  She turned and tiptoed from the room, finding it odd that it was only then that she felt tears smart her eyes.

            Logan was waiting for her outside.

            “For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, as she shut the door softly behind her. “I’m sorry.”

            Rogue could only nod.  There didn’t seem to be any adequate reply to make.  She stood as if rooted to the spot.

            “You look like shit, Rogue,” Logan told her, moving to place a hand on her shoulder. “C’mon – you need to rest.”

            “Ah can’t,” she replied.  She knew that much.

            “You can’t run on nothin’, stripes,” he warned her. “And right now you _got_ nothin’.  Rest, build up your strength.  When you get up, then we can start doin’ somethin’ about this.”

            She knew he was right.  She didn’t want him to be, but she didn’t have the energy to argue.  The numbness in her was greater than her power to fight.

            “We needed her, Logan,” she murmured weakly. “How are any of us supposed t’ make sense of this without her?”

            “You honestly think she could’ve helped us with _this_?” Logan asked her soberly, sadly even. “Rogue, if there was anythin’ at all she coulda done to help us, she would’ve left it in her diaries.  Or told Raven.”

            “Raven hates me right now,” Rogue muttered dismally.

            “Hates you?  I don’t think so, Rogue.  Maybe she’s angry with you.  For being there for Irene when she wasn’t, for Irene taking a bullet in your place.  But I don’t think she _hates_ you.”

            That made sense too.  She didn’t want it to, but it did.

            “Why don’t we look at the Diaries then?” she queried, changing tack.  Logan looked uncomfortable.

            “The last volume’s in Irene’s room.” He indicated with a nod at the door Rogue had just come from. “But seriously, stripes, you ain’t gonna find nothin’ useful in there.  We already looked.  Things get to this point and then they go blank.”

            Rogue blinked at him.

            “What?”

            “You heard me.  Blank.  There’s nothin’.  You could look for yerself, but I don’t think Raven would appreciate you rootin’ round her room just yet.”

            True again.  And she believed what Logan had told her, it was just so… strange.  Why would Irene have stopped?  Unless it was _the end_ : the thing that Irene had always spoken of as being the great purpose of the Timestream itself, something that had always seemed so monumental and far away to Rogue, a kind of Armageddon.  But she felt certain that if that was the case, Irene would have imparted that particular knowledge to her.

            The numbness was receding, giving way to an overwhelming tiredness.  Rogue passed a hand over her eyes, rubbed her brow with her thumb.  The past couple of days she’d been living off nothing more than adrenaline: her mind had already shut down; now her body was protesting as well.  Irene’s words seemed to swim at the forefront of her vision in a strange fusion of sight and sound, the synathestic effect of traumatic memory.

            _Everything lies in your power, for better, for worse…_

            The sentence could be read two ways.  She wondered which one Irene had intended, or whether it made any difference.

            “Rogue,” Logan was saying, real concern on his face this time. “Get some sleep.  Even if it’s just for an hour.  And that ain’t a request.  You need to rest.”

            Somehow his kindness seemed to cut through the haze of the past few days.  Despite thinking it was impossible for her to cry again, she began to weep.  Logan, alarmed, put his arms round her awkwardly, as if it was an age since he’d last embraced anyone.  Nevertheless she clung to him, fuelled by the terrible intuition that he was the only thing she had left.  Irene, Remy, and now Raven – all had left her.  She didn’t think she could take another loss.

            It was when she pulled away slightly that she saw it on his face again – a look that she recognised now was of pained restraint – and it was only inside her own sense of loss that she could understand exactly what it meant.

            She understood that he’d lied.

            That he felt more for her than either of them had dared to acknowledge.

            And he kissed her.

            She let him kiss her because she wanted it, because instinct told her he would never let her hurt or be alone, and she needed that reassurance more than anything.

            It was pure selfishness.

            And when they drew apart she looked him right in the eye and saw that he sensed it also.  There was no recrimination in his gaze – it had been an act of selfishness on his part too.

            “Ah’m sorry,” she told him brokenly. “Ah – Ah can’t.”

            “I know,” he answered.

            And they never spoke about it again.

 

*

 

            She did as Logan suggested and slept, though it was hard to sleep despite her exhaustion.  Her mind was feverish, her emotions were in a whirl.  She tossed and turned, thinking of Irene lying on that bed in a cold repose, as silent and invisible as she had been all her life, yet _no longer there_ …  Her presence always implied by the onward march of Time, by the fact that every day was followed by a tomorrow… And now gone.  Disappeared without trace.

            And then she thought of Raven, her steel grey eyes boring right into her from across the bed, bald hostility in that glare, the accusation of ages held in a single gaze that should have withered Rogue where she stood…

            New York city, ablaze, a prison of the dead and dying, and somewhere in the centre of it all Remy LeBeau – Sinister – whoever or whatever he was – causing it.  The one man she had given up so much to, who had played all the love she cherished most dearly on a wild gamble and lost. She understood why he’d done it, she even understood the hubris that had led him to believe he would win… But he _hadn’t_ won… And even if he had, she still didn’t know if she could forgive him for making her a pawn in his game. That he had played her as surely as he’d played Sinister was starkly clear, and it burned, even if it had been for her, for both of them… in the end it still burned...

            Then there were Logan’s lips on hers, a stolen kiss because she feared loss and he feared losing her without telling her he’d come to love her…

            And everything sucked in under the tide, into the whirlpool of memories, through to that place where everything was tucked away, everything was hidden, her own secret little storehouse, her shoebox of past moments recollected, greasy photos on the wall textured with a thick layer of dust… …

            “Rogue.”

            She looked over her shoulder and saw Remy standing right there behind her, just as she was pinning that last memory onto her note board.  She was almost surprised to find herself consciously here.  She was in the mansion in her mind, in her old bedroom.  She hadn’t been here, not for years.  Going into the mansion had somehow always seemed forbidden to her – yet here she was, in this facsimile of her old life, in a room of beiges and faint blushed pink, sunlight streaming in through windows that looked down onto the lake below.  She was standing by her neatly arranged desk, looking up at the wall in front of her.

            The wall was cluttered.  Photos were spilling off the noteboard in a torrent, overlapping one another in a confused jumble, a mess of colour penetrated here and there by spots of black and white… Moments of her life played out in still-life, none of it in any coherent order.  There were a few from her childhood; more were from her teen years, after her powers had first manifested.  A deep splash of colour from her time with the X-Men, counterbalanced by shades of grey from the time immediately thereafter.  Soft strains of flushed red and pastels threading their way through the monochrome, and she saw _he_ was in those ones.  She looked at them with the giddy feeling of a schoolgirl who draws hearts in the margins of her notebooks along with the name of her beloved.  Her heart ached when she realised then how much she missed him.

            “Looks interestin’,” he commented in a flat voice, and she realised that he was referring to the picture she’d just pinned up – her and Logan in a cacophony of clashing neon colours, like a garish piece of pop art.

            “It ain’t what you think,” she told him evenly, more calmly than she’d thought.  Here, in her mind, things seemed clearer.  Tranquil, even.  All the tumult of the real world a distant echo.

            “I ain’t thinkin’ anyt’ing,” he replied in the kind of voice that told her that he was actually thinking quite a lot.  She turned to him, reached out to touch the lapels of his coat.  Her fingers curled around the fabric, but as usual, there was no sensation associated with the action – perhaps a mere prickling, but that was all.

            “Ah wish Ah could explain,” she told him sadly, stepping close to him and feeling none of his warmth. “There’s so much going on on the outside and Ah’m feelin’ so scared and alone… Logan’s the only one Ah have right now… It just _happened_ …”

            “I know what’s goin’ on outside, _chere_ ,” he answered her after a moment – there was no hardness in his tone, but not much softness either.  She looked up at him, surprised.

            “How?”

            “Irene,” he said. “We’ve been workin’ together, Rogue.  For a while now, actually.  I wanted t’ tell you, but never got de chance.  Things have been kinda crazy…”

            Rogue was silent a moment.  This new bit of information explained a lot; and yet it explained next to nothing.

            “Irene said I held the tools,” she murmured half to herself. “She said they were here.” She looked at him again questioningly. “Ah figured she meant Sage and Leech… Did she mean _you_ too?  And her own psyche?  Workin’ together?”

            There was still no emotion on his face.

            “Tools?  Mebbe, _chere_.  We got some t’ings lined up for you.  But it’d take too long to explain – it’s better if I show you.  It’s why I’m here anyways.  To take you to de place.”

            “What place?” she asked him, confused.

            “De base.  Of operations.” And only then did he smile. “Sounds scary, neh?  Don’t worry – it ain’t.  You’ll see when you get dere.”

 

            He led her out of her room, down long, plush carpeted corridors that were at once familiar and yet strange for all their untouched stillness.  It _felt_ like a house abandoned – as if all its occupants had suddenly upped and left without taking their belongings but a few moments before.  All was quiet, yet every room was suffused with a warm glow of sunlight, with the scent of the gardens that had so often filtered through during the summer.  It was surreal, yet intensely moving; as she followed Gambit through the well-loved building, she felt a thickness begin to form in her throat.

            And then, to her surprise, he stopped in front of Xavier’s office and turned to her.

            “Here,” he said, simply, and pushed the burnished oak door open.  He did not enter, but gestured for her to do so.  And she did.

            She stopped short when she saw who was in there.

            There was Irene of course, but not at Xavier’s desk as she had expected.  The desk was empty, the polished wood shimmering with an almost blinding light in the ray of sunshine that poured in from the window behind it.  Irene was instead sitting on one of three sofas arranged in a semicircular pattern about a coffee table right in front of the desk.  Rogue remembered Xavier often using this arrangement when the purpose of a meeting had been an informal chat.  She realised then how little he had actually used his desk.

            Beside Irene sat Rachel, fresh-faced and eager.  And on the sofa opposite, Sage and Leech.  It was their presence that had caused Rogue to stop short in her tracks.  It was the first time she had seen them since their absorption, and here they were, wide awake and fully assimilated, waiting for her expectantly.

            Irene saw the astonishment on her face.  She smiled faintly and gestured to the one empty sofa.

            “Rogue.  We’ve been waiting for you.  Please, sit.”

            She hesitated, not because she was afraid, but because she was confused; taken aback, even, at the calm efficiency with which her own mind had been taken over and made their own.

            “Yes – I have taken liberties,” Irene spoke, sensing Rogue’s thoughts. “Forgive me, my child.  There is no other way.  Please, sit.”

            The quiet gravity of her voice impelled Rogue to obey.  There was a strangeness to the fact that she had twice begged forgiveness of her daughter in the same day – once in life, and once again in this non-life.  Rogue swallowed, moved into the room, and sat slowly at the empty sofa.  She heard Remy close the door softly behind him.  He did not sit.  Instead he went to the window and stared out onto the dream world she had created so long ago as a haven.  She could not read his profile.  As for the others – they looked at her with a silent expectancy, their expressions watchful.  Rachel’s with a kind of excited nervousness, Leech’s with the wide-eyed artlessness of the child, Sage with a haughty prepossession, as if interested in the proceedings despite the dictates of her own better judgement.

            Irene was, as ever, serene.

            “You know,” Rogue began falteringly, “what’s goin’ on outside then?”

            Irene nodded.

            “I’ve seen it.  I know, for example, that my earthly body has perished.”

            She said it with equanimity, without the impression that it troubled her in the least.

            “ _Why_?” Rogue asked for what seemed the hundredth time but was only the second that day.

            “Because they would have killed you,” Irene returned softly. “And that was one thing that I could not allow to happen.”

            “Couldn’t you have found some other way?” she asked desperately.

            “Rogue.” The word was said with an indulgent smile, as though admonishing a child who ought to know better. “You should know by now that the hardest thing of all is to direct the actions of other people.  In a matter of life and death, the only one whose actions you can be sure of is your own.  So it was with this.  I prepared long for the moment.  Part of my preparations included the reason you see me here now.”

            Rogue thought back on it.  That day when she had absorbed her foster mother, thinking of it as nothing more than a demonstration of her power, of what was to be, but that had actually had a double intent; layers of intent, in fact, that Irene had kept hidden.

            “So you see,” Irene continued plainly, “the fact of my death is one I have long been reconciled to, that causes me little consternation – apart from the grief it has caused you, and to the ones I love.”

            There was only one other who loved her.  Raven.  Rogue didn’t dare to speak.

            “And to be honest,” the little old woman added as an afterthought, “I have been alive so long that death should seem a welcome release – that of laying down a great burden.”

            There was a sombre silence in the room.  The other psyches were perhaps contemplating their own mortality – or lack of it, considering their current state of being.  It was a complex and surreal question, and naturally Rogue knew they had no time for it.

            “You told me Ah had tools,” she spoke up, wavering as she remembered what had been one of Irene’s final words to her. “Ah’m assumin’ _this_ is what you mean.”

            “Yes,” Irene replied simply.

            “Then Ah s’ppose,” Rogue continued her train of thought, “that all these absorptions – of Remy and Rachel and Leech and Sage – were somethin’ you’d pre-planned too.”

            “Yes.”

            “So why did you let Remy become—” She stopped short, checking her anger, her eyes flickering up to his shade, who still stood at the window, quiet and expressionless.

            “Because I needed him to have his power,” Irene explained gently. “I knew what Sinister would do, of course – but contingencies were made.  Hence—” And she spread her hands, indicating the room and its contents.

            “ _What_ power?” Rogue queried on a breath.

            “A prodigious power, Rogue.  The ability to remake himself.  To remake himself _inside Time_.”

            Rogue heard the words as if over a great divide.  The obvious gravity behind them made it even more difficult to understand what they meant.

            “And why do you need him to have this power?” she asked slowly, not sure if it was the right question.

            “To make things _right_.”

            “And what exactly is _wrong_?  Can’t things just _be_?”

            “Yes.”

            “So why can’t you _let_ them be?”

            “Because I want the end purpose.”

            “And what is _that_?”

            Irene was silent.  And Rogue realised that she wasn’t entirely sure _what_ it was.  She understood that Irene had _drawn_ that end purpose.  On the very last page of her diary, right at the back.  After a slew of blank pages.  An image of the Phoenix, rising from the ashes, blazing bright.  But what that _meant_ was an answer she didn’t even think Irene herself possessed.

            “ _What is the Phoenix_?” she murmured to herself.

            “The end purpose,” Irene replied when she had expected none.

            “ _Why_?”

            “To ask that question is to ask the universe itself,” Irene returned evenly. “And I cannot answer it.”

            “So Ah’m a pawn,” Rogue came to the only natural conclusion she could.

            “We all are.”

            Rogue bristled.  It was hard enough to believe that she was Irene’s pawn, let alone the pawn of a great cosmic truth.

            “Irene,” Remy broke the silence at last. “We don’t have much time.”

            Irene glanced at him with a twist of a smile.

            “Your lover is a singular man,” she addressed Rogue with a note of admiration and something more. “I had always known it would be so; but I left much to the whims of Fate in letting him out of my sight.  It is gratifying to see that, despite this, he has turned out far better than I imagined.”

            It was pride in her voice.  Rogue recognised it.

            “So _he_ was your pawn, as much as Ah was?” she questioned.

            “In a way.” Irene was matter-of-fact. “It was I, of course, who stole him from Sinister during the fall of the Black Womb project.  That day, the day that Amanda Mueller destroyed the facility, there was not time to rescue you both.  Raven made a decision.  She took _you_.  But I could not allow the boy to remain in Essex’s clutches.  I took it upon myself to liberate him; it almost cost me my own life.  A blind woman and a baby, escaping a burning building.  Raven was livid with me for doing what I did, but I knew I would succeed.  And so I did.”

            She smiled placidly at the memory, as though to congratulate herself on a job well done.

            “He needed to be somewhere far away and safe,” she continued matter-of-factly. “He needed, moreover, to be somewhere where he would be ingrained with those traits most beneficial to my cause, and most disadvantageous to Sinister’s.  And lastly, he needed to be somewhere where he would fall in love with the woman who would set in motion a chain of events that would lead him _back_ to Sinister, who would take away the great power he possessed before he would appreciate how to use it.  And so I took him to the Thieves Guild.  It was a spur of the moment choice, but it seems it was a good one.  Jean-Luc LeBeau was exactly the influence he needed; Belladonna Boudreaux exactly the siren to tempt him into a fatal act that would shape much of the course of his life – his actions, his decisions, his emotions, his way of thinking.  And of course, all these led him to _you_.”

            “ _Irene_ ,” Remy broke in again, and this time there was emotion in his voice, almost strangled as he tried to hold it down.  Again, Irene smiled.

            “But that is the past,” she finished lightly. “And now we must turn our minds to the future.”  She looked around her a moment, as if pleased with the little assemblage before her. “Now,” she began again, looking back at Rogue, “tell me why you are here.”

            “You’re the one who brought me here,” she protested. “Why don’t _you_ tell me?”

            “Because it is useless for me to give you aid if you do not know what it is you fight.”

            “Then Ah’m here to fight Remy,” Rogue replied impatiently. “Or Sinister.  Ah don’t know if it makes much difference right now.  Essex said he had implanted his genetic memory into Remy.  Ah don’t even know what that means.”

            “It means that the two are synthesised, essentially,” Sage explained in her deep, rich voice from the sidelines. “All living cells possess a genetic record of the development of the organism that hosts them.  It’s possible, through epigenetic DNA methylation, to encode the genome of a host with the recorded memory of another organism, without altering the genetic sequence of that host.  Such processes are already seen in Nature, acting of their own accord, even in the tiniest of organisms.  No doubt Essex discovered a way to reproduce it artificially, and on a much larger scale.” She gave an apologetic smile. “Essex was no fool.  As his offspring, Gambit was already genetically similar enough for there to be no danger of rejection.”

            Rogue thought about it.  She didn’t understand all of the words, but she got the gist of it.

            “So Remy is Remy… And Essex too?”

            “In a nutshell.” Sage nodded. “His own DNA structure remains intact.  Whatever he has of Essex’s DNA structure has been essentially grafted on.  Imprinted, so to speak.  Nothing more.”

            “And nothin’ less,” Rogue murmured, looking up at Remy, who was again facing the window. “Essex’s mind havin’ access to Remy’s full powers – that ain’t somethin’ to take lightly.”

            “Indeed,” Sage returned witheringly.

            “So how am Ah supposed to stop him?” Rogue asked helplessly. “He’s too powerful.  He can stop time, for Chrissakes.  Out there he’s tearin’ apart the city, blowin’ up Sentinels and settin’ fire to Hounds just by _thinkin’_ it!  So what if Ah had enough power to stop him?  How could Ah even get to him without him killin’ me first?”

            Remy turned to her then, his gaze penetrating.

            “You think he would?”

            She knew the idea offended him, was repugnant to him.

            “It’s a possibility Ah wouldn’t like to test,” she rejoined quietly.

            “I – he – would never hurt you, let alone kill you,” he said with grave conviction.

            “But Sinister?”

            He was quiet.  At last Irene spoke up.

            “You are important to _Sinister_ too, Rogue,” she commented in that same calm tone.

            “To a certain point,” Rogue conceded after a moment’s thought. “Ah was a disappointment to him.  When Ah absorbed Leech and Sage,” and her eyes flickered over the two briefly, “he wasn’t pleased with the process.  It was too slow, too… inefficient.  He wanted to clone me.  He’d even taken a sample of my DNA, but Remy… he destroyed it.” She paused, forcing herself to continue. “He wanted to create an army of me, but keep me in stasis, like he had Leech and Sage, so that my clones could imprint me as and when needed.  He doesn’t need _me_.  All he needs is for me to be breathin’, the bare minimum, that’s it.  The point is,” she continued on a breath, “Ah could go up to Remy with every intention of stoppin’ him and bam, next moment Ah could be comatose.  Wouldn’t be much of a fair fight.”

            “Dis ain’t Essex we’re talkin’ about,” Remy pointed out unsmilingly. “At least half of me is in dere – maybe more.  You’re assumin’ I want you dead as much as Essex does.  And I can tell you now, if dere’s a way to keep you livin’ and by my side, I’ll take it.”

            He held her gaze, as if that alone could communicate the fact to her.

            “All right,” she finally agreed. “So let’s assume Remy’s prepared to sit around and talk.  First of all, Ah’m gonna need to find him.  And how the hell am Ah even s’pposed to know _where_ he is?”

            Rachel put her hand up meekly.

            “You do know you have a first-rate telepath here, right?” she interjected. “One who just happens to have been a Hound too?  If it’s a mutant you want finding, there isn’t anyone better.  Not to mention which,” she added enthusiastically, “I can give you some psionic shielding in case he tries anything, you know, psychic.”

            “Ah don’t think Remy’s capable of _that_ ,” Rogue replied with a slight smile. “But thanks all the same, Rae.” She took in a deep breath, began again. “Okay.  So Ah guess Ah can locate him.  Next comes the gettin’ past his crazy new powers.” Her gaze slid over in Leech’s direction. “And it _has_ to be you. There can’t be any other way.”

            “Yes,” Irene nodded, casting a glance in Leech’s direction; the boy smiled at Rogue shyly. “Leech can inhibit any mutant’s ability to access their power, however strong they may be.”

            “Right,” Rogue nodded, business-like. “What’s your range?” she asked the boy.

            “Ten yards,” Remy promptly answered for him.  They seemed to have come to some understanding – all pertinent information regarding Leech would come from Remy.  She guessed Leech had to trust someone and, from what she had seen in his memories, she was glad that he and Remy had made a connection, even if only in her head.

            “That ain’t much,” she noted wryly. “It ain’t as if Remy can’t give me the slip or somethin’.”

            He shrugged.

            “It’s what you’re gonna haveta work with.  You’ll find a way.”

            And she figured she’d have to.  She looked back at Irene.

            “Ah’m guessin’ from what you’ve said that you still need Remy for whatever crazy purpose you’re workin’ toward.  Which means that you don’t want me t’ kill him.”

            “No,” Irene agreed, and Rogue heaved a sigh of relief.

            “Good.  Cos Ah don’t think Ah could do that.” She paused momentarily. “So what exactly do you want me t’ do to him?”

            “Strip away Sinister’s genetic memory,” Irene explained, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “Undo what was done to him and make him whole again.  So that he may do what he needs to do.”

            There was a long silence.  Rogue stared at her hands, thinking hard.  She knew by now that Irene never asked of her what was impossible, however tempted she might be to think it.  Sitting here as she was, in this strange little gathering that had been planned possibly for years in advance, she knew moreover, that the answer to this conundrum could only be in this very room.

            “It _has_ to be you,” she reasoned, looking up at Sage with sudden enlightenment. “Xavier said that your secondary mutation was the ability to unlock the latent powers of other mutants by manipulatin’ their genetic template…”

            “That is correct,” Sage replied, looking distinctly pleased with herself.

            “So that means that you can switch _off_ parts of the code as well as _on_?” Rogue reasoned out loud.

            “In theory,” came the staid reply.

            “ _In theory_?”

            She didn’t like the sound of that.

            “I’ve never tried it before.” Sage’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Giving a mutant their powers was a thing in itself.  Taking them away is something entirely different.  Akin to removing a limb, or an organ.  I wouldn’t have attempted such a procedure unless it was a matter of life and death.  Not even for you.”

            Rogue knew instinctively what she’d meant – that if had she known this ten years ago, she might have been tempted to ask Sage to remove her vampire touch – more so once Remy had come into her life.

            “So if _you_ don’t know how to use that power, how am _Ah_ s’pposed to?” she asked incredulously.  Sage shrugged.

            “You’ll just have to improvise.  At any rate, you don’t have time to practice.”

            Rogue frowned heavily.

            “Seems like we’re workin’ on a lot of what ifs here,” she observed gloomily.

            “Or a lot of faith,” Irene suggested.

            “Or a lot of hope,” Rachel added.  Irene smiled at her.  There was meaning in that smile, admiration, affection.

            “So Rogue,” Irene began, turning back to her, “will that be enough for you?  Hope and faith and what ifs?”

            She thought about it.

            “Do Ah have a choice?” she murmured in reply.

            “One always has a choice,” Irene rejoined, but Rogue shook her head and said, “The choice Ah have ain’t any kinda choice Ah can _make_.”

            “Of course it isn’t,” Irene agreed. “But it is a choice just the same.”

            Rogue drew in a heavy breath, knowing what she was prepared to do and knowing also that they knew she was prepared to do it.

            “What about Remy?” she asked, looking up at him still standing by the window. “What’s he goin’ to do?”

            “Give you an edge,” he answered for himself this time. “You’ll need it, if you’re comin’ up against me.  It might not mean much, but I could gain you a few seconds in a scrap.  Might make de difference b’tween life and death.”

            There was something in his tone, despite the control he’d displayed so far, that told her that he was far from happy about all this, yet was determined to go through with it anyway.  What that meant exactly was a mystery to her, but she was beginning to be resigned to not understanding everything.

            “So,” Irene interrupted softly, “you may be assured of the help of every single person in this room.  Here are your tools, Rogue.  Will you use them?”

            “You know that even if Ah really had a choice the answer would be yes,” Rogue returned quietly; and Irene smiled.

            “You have my help too,” she comforted her. “The help of Destiny.  It says that you will succeed.”

            Remy shot her look then, one that was almost pained.  Rogue saw it and wondered.  Irene, however, did not notice, or pretended not to.  She stood.

            “There is little time to lose, Rogue.  When you awaken, you must be ready to act without a moment’s pause.  I – we – will be ready for you at a second’s notice should you require it.  But do not delay too long, my child.  Time is of the essence.”

            Everyone stood, and, the meeting over, one by one they filed out of the room.  Only Remy stood motionless.  Again, Irene pretended not to notice.  She passed through the door last and shut it behind her, leaving Rogue behind with Gambit.           

            “You don’t want this t’ happen,” she spoke up quietly when they were finally alone and the sound of the others’ footsteps had disappeared.  He looked at her, his expression as carefully controlled as ever.

            “ _Non_.”

            She didn’t understand it.

            “Surely you can see there ain’t no other way.”

            His eyes didn’t even flicker.

            “I know.”

            “Then _why_?”

            And _then_ his eyes flickered. 

            “De danger you’re in, Rogue.  Do I need any other reason?”

            There was still that look in his eyes.  The hardness, tempered with fear.  She understood then just how much it had cost him to stand there and listen to everything that had just passed.

            “Ah’m sorry,” she said.

            “For what?” he asked.

            “For all _this_.  For what happened to you on the outside.  If Ah coulda stopped it…”

            His smile was wry.

            “One t’ing I’ve learned since gettin’ t’ know your foster mother, Rogue.  Dere are some t’ings dat can’t be stopped.” Again, that pained look touched his eyes.  She felt it as if it were in her very soul.  She sensed there was still something he wasn’t telling her, but that he wasn’t willing to divulge it.  That in itself hurt.

            “Ah’m sorry ‘bout Logan too,” she added awkwardly. “Ah just… Ah’m feelin’ so alone and scared right now and…”

            He reached out, touched her lips with his finger, a featherstroke that shushed her mid-sentence.

            “No apologies,” he said. “I can’t hold anyt’ing against you, especially not now.” The corner of his mouth hitched faintly. “I always knew he had a t’ing about you.  I can’t say I blame him.” He halted, and the smile faded. “If t’ings don’t turn out de way we’ve planned, I won’t blame you neither, _chere_.  You need to be loved, every moment of every day.  I trust Logan to give you dat, if not me.”

            She hushed him, unable to contemplate such a future.

            “Nothin’ bad’s gonna happen,” she reassured him, when she badly needed that reassurance herself.

            “Really?” He cocked an eyebrow. “From what it sounds like, I ain’t gonna be an easy mark.  Whatever Irene says, if you need t’ kill me, do it, _chere_.  Don’t hesitate.”

            His eyes were glowing with the same urgency she’d sensed earlier, as if to impart something of great importance to her.  She shook her head.

            “Ah can’t do that, Remy.”

            “Why not?  You nearly did once.  You were prepared to, for Destiny’s future, for somet’ing dat was bigger den us.  What’s changed?”

            Again she felt it strange, realising there was so much he’d missed, that this was not the Gambit she had shared so much with over the past year.  There were so many things that were impossible to explain.  So many words she wished she had said to him on the outside that it would be useless to say here, now.

            “Everythin’s changed, Remy,” she answered in a low voice. “Even after all the hurt, all the pain you’ve caused me… Even after what happened in Essex’s lab… Do yah really think that Ah could take your life?” She sighed, feeling the rawness of the anger she still held for him shift inside her… and underneath, in a place that was dark and warm, she sensed it – glimmers of the tenderness and love she had borne for him.  Begging her forgiveness.  Jostling for recognition.  All too fast and too soon. “Rachel asked me about us once, on the outside,” she whispered after a lengthy pause. “About our _feelin’s._ And y’know what Ah told her, Remy?  That Ah wanted t’ be with you.  Always.” His gaze flickered as she said it, and she continued softly, “There’s a part of me that still wants that, Remy.  There’s a part of me that always will.”

            There was sadness in his eyes.  As if a stalemate had been reached.  He reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingertips.  She felt only the faintest of touches.

            “Den I hope dis crazy plan works,” he murmured. “Cos if it doesn’t… Dere ain’t anyt’ing worse den knowin’ dat I could be livin’ out dere, willin’ to make de decision to hurt you.”

            “Ah won’t let it happen,” she assured him. “Ah won’t let you become that person.  Even if it kills me.”

            “And if it comes to dat?” he spoke sombrely.

            “Then you and Ah… We go out together, sugah.  A flame extinguished.  You won’t feel any pain.”

            He smiled sadly.

            “But _he_ will.  When he realises what he’s done.”

            “ _If_ he does.”

            He made no response.  His hand dropped from her cheek; he looked like he wanted to say more but was consciously refraining from doing so.

            “You need t’ go back,” he said regretfully. “Dere ain’t much time to lose.”

            She nodded, turned to leave.  Then, on an impulse, she turned back and pressed her lips against his.  There was barely a whisper of sensation, but she drew strength from it nevertheless, and that was all she had wanted.  When she pulled away there was a smile on his face, small though _real_.

            “Gotcha back, Rogue,” he whispered.

            “Got yours, Rem,” she whispered back, and turned towards the light.

 

*

 

            As soon as she opened her eyes she threw back her coverlet and leapt out of bed.  First she went to Logan’s room, but he was nowhere to be seen.  She didn’t have time to track him down.  Her next choice was Jubilee, who happened to be in her room, hooked up to her laptop with a pair of humongous headphones.

            “Jubes,” Rogue called to her, poking her head round the door and not getting any response. “ _Jubes_!”

            Somehow the younger woman heard her.  She slid the headphones off her ears and looked back at her.

            “Damn, Rogue, you scared the shit outta me!  Whassup?”

            “Handcuffs,” Rogue said quickly. “Do you have any?”

            “Handcuffs?” Jubilee looked nonplussed. “Why the hell would I have handcuffs?”

            “Ah dunno,” Rogue replied impatiently. “Do you know where Ah can find any?”

            “You could try the sex shop,” Jubilee answered sarcastically. “If you want the pink fluffy variety that is.  But somehow I don’t think they’re the kind of ones you’re after.” She paused, and her eyes widened. “Wait a minute!  Emma has some!”

            “What?  Where?”

            “I don’t know!  I just saw them once.  Hanging round in her room.”

            That was good enough for Rogue.

            “Where in her room?”

            Jubilee shrugged.

            “In her drawer.  She was getting me something, and I saw it.  But why do you need—”

            But Rogue had already gone.

           

            Emma’s room had been left untouched since her near-fatal injury.  It was difficult not to feel that she was breaking some sort of unspoken taboo in rifling through all her stuff, but Rogue told herself that, had Emma recovered and been out and about, she would’ve cooperated.  Eventually.  Luckily, it didn’t take long to locate the handcuffs, which were exactly where Jubilee had said they were.  It took her a little longer to find the key.

            “What are you doing?”

            Rogue turned slightly to see St. John in the doorway, looking none too impressed.

            “Lookin’ for somethin’,” she retorted briefly, not wanting to waste time explaining things to _him_.

            “Handcuffs?  You gotta date you’ve not told me about?”

            “Shut up, Pyro,” she threw back at him, finally finding the key under a pile of notes. “This is serious.”

            “ _What’s_ serious?” he quizzed her. “Apart from the fact that your boyfriend’s up there destroyin’ the whole fuckin’ city and causin’ major anti-mutant riots.  You sure know how to pick ‘em, Rogue.  But if you ever decide to rethink your relationship with Mr. Remy Le-Fuckin’-Badass, _my_ offer still stands.  Just sayin’,” he added, when she shot him an evil glare.

            “For your information,” she replied acidly. “I’m goin’ to stop him.”

            He gaped at her sceptically.

            “Riiiight.  With a pair of handcuffs.  Good luck with that, girl.”

            She stuffed the handcuffs and the key into the pocket of her jacket.  She didn’t have time to discuss it.

            “When you see Logan, tell him what I’m doin’,” she said, brushing past him and out into the hallway.

            “What?  That you’re going to stop Gambit with a pair of handcuffs?”

            She turned back to him, standing incredulous in the doorway.

            “Tell him Ah know exactly what Ah’m doin’, and he’d better not try to stop me.”

            “Right.” Pyro gave her a helpless look. “And get myself gutted in the process?  _You’re_ the one with the death wish, Rogue, not me!”

            “Fine!” she shouted back, already on the move again. “Don’t tell him!  It’s probably better that way!”

            And the next moment she was gone, leaving Pyro still standing in the doorway, running a hand agitatedly through his strawberry blond hair.

            “So if I tell him, I get gutted.  And if I don’t tell him, I get gutted.” He shook his head slowly at the dilemma. “What the hell… It can’t be worse than havin’ to tell Mystique the same thing.”

            And off he went.

 

*


	15. The Killing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final showdown between Rouge and Remy-Sinister…

            Once upon a time Rogue had slept, teetering on the edge of death.

            During that time a war was fought, a war between mutant and static, between mutant and Sentinel.

            Erik Lensherr, the mutant terrorist once called Magneto, had rallied the remaining super-powered mutants to his cause and initiated a last ditch battle against the Sentinels.  Hundreds had died, civilians on both sides.  Anton Simmons’ wife and child had perished in the conflict.  Most of the super-powered mutants were killed.  The rest were incarcerated.  In a final twist of irony, Erik himself had lost his legs and his freedom.  But not before he had built this, a twisted tower of metal made from the distorted remnants of the Sentinels he had torn apart with his powers.

            The monument was so vast, so misshapen and compacted that it had been almost impossible for the statics to demolish.  And so it had remained, an object of ridicule more than anything, its base graffittied over again and again, repeating the same old mantras – _mutie go home, mutie scum die, fuck mutie filth._

            Rogue stood at the apex of this ugly monolith to Xavier’s failure, shielded only by Forge’s masking device and Rachel Summers’ telepathic screen.  This was, after all, the tallest spot in the entire city, and whilst she risked exposure here, she needed the perspective.  She needed a clear field to work with.

            _He could be shielding_ , she thought to herself, shuddering momentarily as the wind whipped her hair and coat about her.  She slipped her hands into her pockets as Rachel’s psyche flickered briefly under her skull.

            _Maybe,_ she answered _, but you’re not trying to read his thoughts, Rogue.  You just want to locate him.  He has a pretty unique signature.  A wall of static, one that’s almost impenetrable, almost impossible for most telepaths to push past._

            _Huh_ , Rogue mused sardonically. _Though Ah guess_ you _could push past it, right, sugah?_

 _I reckon I could_ , Rachel replied with a smile in her voice. _But I don’t think he’d appreciate it._

 _Rogue don’t need no telepathic powers,_ Remy’s psyche slipped in, warm and unexpected, from some unknown corner. _All she gotta do is touch me, and bam, I’m hers for de takin’.  Body and soul._

Rogue couldn’t help but smirk.

            _Ah already have your body, sugah.  And as for yah soul… Maybe Ah won’t like what Ah find there.  More to the point, Ah don’t think_ you’d _like what Ah find there._

            His laughter beat as soft as butterfly wings in her mind.

            _If you want my past, you could take it all, chere, whether I like it or not.  But you don’t.  Why?  You scared, p’tite?_

She half-smiled, knowing he could feel it even if he couldn’t see it.

            _Because some things aren’t for takin’, Remy.  They’re for you to give, because you_ want _to._   _Now hush, sugah.  Ah’ve got work to do._

            Not another word was said.  A split second later and they were gone.

            Every telepath’s power had a certain signature – Rachel’s were no different.  She’d used others’ before – Jean’s, once, when she was young and barely had control over her powers; and Psylocke’s, during a mission back in Chicago. Psylocke’s signature was speedy, light, a thrumming electric current of a power that almost hummed like a skittish butterfly.  Jean’s had been unfathomable, rich and powerful, possessing an untold depth that seemed to speak the weight of ages.  Rachel’s was vast and full of _breadth_ rather than depth, manifesting a youthful energy and a boundless capacity.  Rogue found her power intuitively effortless to use.  When she cast out Rachel’s psychic net she found it had an unexpected flavour – with each mind she encountered came not just the thoughts of that person but their innate qualities – an artist here, a mathematician there, an undiagnosed synesthetic over there.  And mutants… each mutant held a power signature, and she could read them all.  She understood now why Rachel the Hound had been so invaluable to Ahab.

            But she didn’t have time to revel in this newly acquired ability.  Each mind she touched in her quest was but fleeting and feather-light, and none held the flavour she knew Remy to hold.  She had never _read_ his mind before… But she knew him enough to know the texture of his thoughts, of his innermost secrets, like silver dust passing through her fingertips, smooth and fine and impossible to hold down.  She _knew_.  She knew as surely as she knew her own whitewashed mind exactly what _his_ looked like.

            Yet, stranger still, she found that as she coasted the astral plane she was drawn as inexplicably to him as a moth to a flame.  She had no need to search.  His psyche called to hers whether he wanted it to or not; it sang to her in a way that was almost tangible, spoke to her without words, reached for her without hands.  She homed in on him like a bird flying home to roost, settling in upon the silvery textured fabric of his mind.  Rachel had described it as a wall of static, but she found that the description wasn’t entirely accurate.  What Rogue felt, what she saw in his aura, was an obsidian sandstorm of glittering dust that whirled about him like snowflakes.  And she couldn’t help herself.  She couldn’t help caressing that barrier with the tendrils of her psyche, despite knowing the darkness that lay within.

            And intangible though her psyche was, he seemed to sense her.

            A fraction of a second and his shields came up, shutting her out, the silvery sandstorm spinning faster and faster, a treacherous whirlwind that threatened to strip her to the bone.

            Denied.

            Her eyes flew open, and she was back in her own body, momentarily reeling from the shock of the psychic backlash.

            _Got him?_ Rachel’s voice echoed in her head, and she nodded grimly.

            _Got him_.

            _So where is he?_

            And his psyche answered for her.

            _De second best vantage point in dis city.  De Ritz.  ‘Cos you and I got some real_ good _mem’ries of_ dat _place, right, chere?_

            She smiled wryly, her sardonic reply only curtailed by the sudden appearance of first one Sentinel then another, first to her left then to her right, far in the distance.

            “ _Shit_ ,” she muttered out loud. “We need to hurry.”

            And there was Rachel, right back at the helm again.

            _Then sit tight, Rogue, ‘cos I can get you there in a jiffy.  Telekinetic style.  With shields up to boot.  Better belt up though, girl.  ‘Cos the first time I tried this I puked my goddamn guts out._

            She took flight, skimming over the tops of the grasping towers and the scurrying, ant-like people faster than thought, far from the reach of a world that had always despised her.

            It was only a short three minutes later before she made landfall atop the Ritz, after a smoother ride than Rachel would’ve first had her believe.  Rachel’s telepathic shield had effectively masked her journey over the burning city; but, as she landed feet-first on the gravel rooftop, she felt that protection dissipate and Rachel’s psyche take a virtual backseat.  It was the turn of the other psyches to come into play now, and each needed all the headspace they could get.

            There wasn’t any time to feel nervous about it.  She’d got this far, and now she knew she was committed.  An hour or so ago, back at Logan’s hideout, she had felt the slow rise of panic, the disorder of her own thoughts, her fear of the unknown; but here, now, she felt oddly calm.

            She had been here before after all.

            Irene had shown this to her, in her dreams.

            And so she walked forward, into the steps she had taken before, in a dream, in a future that had always been.  She passed a set of water tanks, a store room… and when she rounded the corner, she saw him there, where she had always seen him in her dreams.  Standing on the edge of the rooftop with his back to her, looking out over the pockets of smoke and flame dotted across the cityscape with his coat tails flapping in the wind.

            And it _was_ him.

            It was _him_ that she walked to, boot soles crunching in the gravel, every movement measured, every thought serene.  If Sinister was there, she couldn’t see it, she couldn’t even feel it, not from _this_ vantage point.  It was just him and her on this rooftop.  Him and her and what she knew she had to do.

            “Been waitin’ for you, Rogue,” he said without turning to her. “Figured it would only be a matter of time before you showed up.”

            It was Remy’s voice, Remy’s stance.  Everything about him was exactly the same but _this_ , this backdrop of chaos and fire.  His auburn hair shone like gold in the light of it.

            “Guess you know me too well,” she said.  He made no acknowledgement of the statement and she took a step closer, added in a lower tone: “You do know Ah’m here to stop you, don’t you.”

            His laugh was soft and cold, a disdainful lilt that sounded alien coming from his lips.  Still, he did not turn to her.

            “How could I expect any less from you, Rogue?” he answered. “You and your black and white world, where everythin’ fits into neat little boxes – good and bad.  You could never shoehorn me into either, could you?  Guess I’m makin’ t’ings a little easier for you now, neh?”

            “You could say that…” she returned bitterly.  Again there was that soft chuckle that wasn’t his.

            “I see.”

            He turned to her then, and whilst she saw nothing in his expression that was different to her, she saw also that his eyes had changed – still dark, still burning – but the fire in them was like ice.  When he smiled at her, it did not reach those cold eyes.

            “Aren’t you even just a little bit curious as to what our minds and our bodies could achieve together?”

            “Would be kinda temptin’,” she admitted softly. “If you were Remy.”

            Something crossed his face then; a stillness that was, again, and imperceptibly, not his own.

            “But I _am_ Remy,” he corrected her in a voice like watered silk, soft and scintillating, gentle seduction; all the more seductive for the fact that he did not smile. “At least when it comes down to de basics.  I just have a little extra… _insight_.  In fact, I’m better than him.  I’m Remy LeBeau, stripped of all his flaws.”

            She measured it.  The distance between them.  Wondering how this was supposed to work, with what little tools she had.  He was dangerous, she knew that.  But she still had some leverage with him, whether it was Remy talking to her now or Essex.  She suspected it was neither.  She suspected, listening to his words, that she was speaking to both.

            “Funny,” she replied, trying to keep this as light and unprovoking as she could whilst she tried to figure this out. “I kinda liked those flaws.”

            He chuckled quietly.

            “You would.  And I guess dat’s what love is all about, isn’t it, Rogue.  Overlooking flaws.  Even learnin’ t’ like them.” He frowned slightly. “It’s why love is unnecessary, _chere_.  A distraction from what’s real and pure.” He paused, looked aside as the wind caught his coat tails, blew his hair into his face.  Glowing ash fluttered around him like rain.  He seemed to be considering something. “It’s interestin’,” he began at last, musing as if on a particularly fascinating experiment. “Reason tells me you’re a distraction.  But everyt’ing else tells me I still want you.” He looked at her again, and this time the slide of his mouth was all his. “I see everyt’ing in a cold light, but you – you burn bright.  You always have.”

            She made no response.  Instead she waited for him to make the first move.  _See what he wants, deal with it then_.  And she still waited as he came to her, taking her silence as wilfulness, or hesitation – she wasn’t sure.  When he stood before her he reached out, touched her hair.  That same lock of white that seemed to fascinate him so much.  She froze visibly as he took it between his fingers; he couldn’t help but notice.

            “You still don’t believe me, do you,” he murmured in that slow, sensuous cadence. “You still don’t believe that I’m Remy.  But I am.  I have all de memories we shared, Rogue.  Every moment from de instant we met.  You told me once dat dey made you greedy, dat you wanted a lifetime of them.  And I said yes to you, even though I knew dat soon we’d be apart again, dat I’d leave you once we’d found Logan in Chicago.  You wanna know why I lied to you?  B’cause I wanted it too.  I was a fool enough then t’ want you dat much.  I still am.”

            And he touched her cheek with just his fingertips, in a gesture so tender and familiar that she believed him; and she closed her eyes on a shallow, trembling breath, trying to steel herself against his words when she _knew_ now that it was Remy talking…

            “I still want you by my side,” he spoke, the words softly caressing her lips with the warmth of his breath. “T’ink about de t’ings we could make together, Rogue.  I could strip them from you, you know.  All these flaws, all these human weaknesses.  We’ll make a beautiful new world to live in, _chere_ , you and me.  One dat will be _ours_.”

            And for a moment she allowed herself to sense it.  The sweetness of this world he had conjured up for her out of the syrupy sweep of his words.  A world that could be exactly the way they wanted it to be, without any fear.  A perfect place where everything could and would be possible, that would obey their every whim.  Adam and Eve in their very own Eden.  A godless world with no one to answer to.  Sterile and loveless.  Perfect and dead.  All the sorrow and the joy and the need and the hope gone out of them.

            And she opened her eyes.  She stepped back.  She knew that his temptations were empty.  They were empty because if they made such a world together, no love could exist between them.  It would be nothing more than a cold, clinical experiment; the fruits of their union mere by-products, constructs with no purpose, no meaning, save for the cynical logic that they were a means to their own end.  And the thought of it disgusted her.

            “Ah’m sorry, sugah,” she murmured, holding him back with a hand as he made to bridge the gap between them once more. “Ah don’t much like the look of that world.”

            Her eyes flickered over his shoulder, past the burning city to a S. H. I. E. L. D. helicopter that was coming in over the horizon.  If he heard it he wasn’t overly concerned about it.  His expression was grave as he looked down on her.

            “It’s de way of nature, Rogue,” he stated solemnly. “To cleanse of all weakness, before de rebuilding can begin.  _Homo superior_ can’t live in a world wit’ de Sentinels and de Hounds.  All I’m doin’ is clearin’ a path for us.”

            “No,” she retorted with certainty. “You’re just provin’ the people that hate us _right_.”

            The helicopter had drawn closer, almost drowning out the sound of their voices with its deafening clamour, with the booming thunder of its occupants’ threats.  Still, Remy didn’t pay it any heed.  He calmly removed the hand Rogue had placed on his chest, his countenance impassive.

            “You disappoint me, Rogue,” he said evenly. “I thought you of all people would understand me.” His smile was almost self-deprecating. “But I guess we’ve always had trouble wit’ it – understandin’ each other.”

            The  S. H. I. E. L. D. helicopter was circling them now, so close that she could almost have made out the faces of its occupants, had they been wearing no armour.  One of them was moving now, opening up the door to the chopper, shouted into a megaphone:

            “ _You have 10 seconds to put your hands up, get to the ground and cooperate.  If you do not comply within said allotted time, S. H. I. E. L. D. will be compelled to use deadly force in compliance with the Mutant Crimes Act of two thousand and—_ ”

            He never got to finish the sentence.  Remy had listened with obvious impatience, rolling his eyes with frustrated boredom.  He didn’t even need to look.  In one horrible moment – a moment in which Rogue instinctively knew what was going to happen next – the helicopter had simply exploded in mid-air as if of its own accord, lighting up the sky in a hellish maelstrom of flame and smoke and debris.  The sound was thunderous, roaring to the pitiful accompaniment of screams from way down below.  Rogue ducked against the searing blast of hot air, hands on her ears, as twisted bits of smouldering wire and metal sailed past her.  There wasn’t much of the aircraft left, but as she stood and ran forward closer to the edge of the roof, she saw that what was left of it was tumbling down to the streets below.

            “ _Dammit!_ ” she cried, turning away from the sight to see Remy close behind her again, watching on with a disinterested gaze. “Remy, you need to stop this,” she implored him breathlessly, the taste of jet fuel stinging her mouth. “There are innocent people down there, losin’ their lives because of _your_ actions…”

            “Collateral damage,” he tossed aside her words, unconcerned, turning away from her. “Impossible to avoid.  I stopped feelin’ guilty about it years ago, _chere_.” He began to walk away from her, and she took a step after him, frightened for the first time.

            “Where’re you goin’?”

            He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder at her.

            “If I told you, would you join me?  Or would you just try to stop me?”

            “What do you _think_?” she shouted defiantly; and he stopped then, turning to her with a smile.

            “And how are you gonna stop me, Rogue?” he asked coldly, and she stood stock still, knowing that he could _unmake_ her in a single, brutal second.  His smile widened and he turned away again, saying: “I thought so.”

            He walked away casually, and she saw in the confidence of his stride that he thought she had nothing, that she posed no more of a threat than the S. H. I. E. L. D. helicopter, the Sentinels and the Hounds combined.  But he was wrong.  She had something, and she had every intention of using it – this last desperate ploy.

            She raced up to close the distance that now separated them, and he half turned as though he expected her to have finally given in and made the decision to join him.  But even as he did so she reached out, catching his left wrist in Emma’s handcuff and snapping it shut.  He looked down at it, mixed irritation and amusement on his face.

            “What’s dis?” he spoke as if admonishing a child insisting on playing a tiresome game.  Rogue looked him right in the eye, knowing that now there wasn’t even a modicum of a chance that she could turn back.  She had to play out Irene’s game now, whether for better or for worse.

            “Insurance,” she told him, lifting her right wrist and snapping the other cuff over it.  He stared back at her, an intrigued smile tugging on his lips.

            “What’re you hopin’ t’ achieve wit’ dis, Rogue?  Woulda thought you could come up wit’ somet’ing more _inventive_ wit’ dese…”

            She said nothing in reply, taking the key out of her pocket and casting it away from her with a single swing of her left arm.  His expression darkened as the thin sliver of metal sailed through the air and over the edge of the building.  This time his look was one of pure annoyance.

            “You do know dat I can break these fuckin’ t’ings with just a thought, Rogue,” he ground out at her, and he lifted his hand and stared at the link of the handcuffs with an angry glare.  And he stared.  And he stared.  And nothing happened.

            He looked up at her sharply and she couldn’t stop the smug smile from playing across her lips.

            “Try a little harder, sugah, why dontcha?  It might just work.”

            And he did.  He rattled the cuffs as though expecting them to jump into life with his charge; but still, nothing happened.

            “What have you done?” he growled from between gritted teeth, fury slowly working through his face; a different kind of charge that was nevertheless just as palpable.  It stripped away her smugness, reminded her that she was in greater danger than she’d ever been before.

            “Ah absorbed Leech, remember,” she explained to him in an almost conversational tone. “Ah’m usin’ his power now.  Nullifyin’ your powers so that you can’t access them.  It only works within a 10 yard radius.  Hence these.” She raised her right hand and his left one, joined together now by Emma’s handcuffs. “Looks like you got what you wanted, sugah.  You and me together, forever.”

            His eyes blazed with that arctic fire that was all Sinister’s, a gaze that bored into her with a hate she’d never seen in him before.

            “You can’t play at dis forever, _chere_.  Sooner or later you’re gonna haveta give in.”

            “But for how long?” she bit back at him, giving up the coy play of banter. “Ah’m willin’ to wait here a long time, sugah.  Long enough, at least, for S. H. I. E. L. D. to come along and arrest you.  And longer, if Ah have to.  Ah learned a lot from you, Gambit, while we were together.  Panache, finesse… puttin’ your wildcard into play at just the right moment.  Well, here it is.  How does it feel to be on the receivin’ end, sweetheart?”

            It came out of nowhere; the flat of his palm, smashing into the side of her face with such force that she stumbled and would have fallen, if he hadn’t realised she would’ve taken him with her.  He jerked his handcuffed hand so that she landed against him instead, all the scent, all the warmth that belonged to him making her heart leap into her mouth.  He grasped her shoulder with his free hand, pushed her off of him.  The smile on his face was merciless; but she met it with defiance, certain now that she had a hold over him he couldn’t hope to beat.

            “You’ve made a mistake, Rogue,” he hissed. “But I’m still willin’ to give you a chance.  Work _with_ me, not against me.  I always looked at you as my weakness, but together we can be _strong_.  Release me from dis pathetic mutant’s powers and I’ll show you dat I mean it.  I’m brave enough now to face a future wit’ you, as long as you help me t’ _make_ it.”

            His words were seduction – enticing her with a possibility, with a dream, not of what they could achieve, but merely that he was willing to take a chance on her he’d never been willing to take before, not _really_.

            But the greater part of her knew that it was not _her_ that he wanted, rather, it was what she could offer him.  And that would not last.

            “No,” she replied with that same defiance; and this time there was not merely chagrin on his face, but also disbelief that she should refuse him yet again.

            “ _Why_?”

            And there was real perplexity in his voice…

            “Because what you want ain’t meant to _be_ …”

            His face changed.  She’d thought it impossible to hurt him in this state, but what she saw now – it was more than just hurt.  There was a quiet containment, a stillness.  A realisation that this was no mere rejection, but that it was something bigger and deeper than themselves – that it always _had_ been.

            “I see,” he said coldly. “I see exactly what dis is about.  Destiny’s prophecies.  De lies dat have guided your life, Rogue.  Dat you allowed to guide _mine_.”

            “They’re not lies, Remy,” she breathed. “Ah know b’cause Ah can _see_ them!”

            “No?” His gaze was a searing blaze as he said the word. “Destiny’s lies are what led me to dis point.  And all her prophecies, all her plans led her to one purpose.  To kill _you_ , Rogue.  I saw it wit’ my own eyes.  It was what she saw from the very beginnin’.  And you know what de irony is, Rogue?  You chose her over me every damn time.  You’re doin’ it now.  You’d risk your own life, you’d risk _mine_ to protect those lies.” His glance was still cold, penetrating, and she saw with something like surprise that it was jealousy in them.  Envy of those lies that she knew were lies, and yet were strangely not lies – but half-truths, waiting to finally tip the balance into truth or falsity.

            “Ah can’t let you do this, Remy,” she told him calmly, patiently. “Ah can’t let you become what Essex wanted – _wants_ – you to be.  It’s not only your life or my life at stake.  It’s _everyone’s_.”

            His mouth twisted bitterly.

            “And I can’t let you stop me.  Don’t you see, Rogue?  Our ascendancy has come, and _I_ am the catalyst.”

            “Yes.  Of the _end_ of us.”

            There was no use arguing – he saw that now.  With each passing moment time was being wasted, this thing that was drawing an end inexorably nearer.  Again, over the sirens, over the burning of the city, the sound of helicopters emerged from somewhere in the far distance.  She saw the corner of his mouth hitch in that familiar, lazy smile, a smile that was now completely joyless.

            “Release me,” he said softly, a thinly veiled threat held in those two words as he held up their joined wrists in a final invitation; but she held her ground – she had nothing left.

            “ _No_.”

            His smile did not waver.  He’d been expecting it.

            “I asked de same thing from Rebecca once,” he told her quietly, almost conversationally; he pulled his wrist in, drawing her closer to him, and she had no choice but to comply. “I begged her to release me from it, dis madness, de torment of my mind, of my soul, from de loss of our son.  From de madness of her love.  She tethered me to all de small, petty things of this world.  When she left… I was free.  For de first time, I saw clearly.  I saw dat my love for her had held me back when I thought it had nourished me, given me sustenance.  But she had only made me human when I was always somet’ing _more_.”

            He nudged her closer again, so that their bodies were practically flush against one another and she was looking right into his eyes.

            “I’m sorry, Rogue,” he murmured menacingly. “But if you won’t free me, I guess I’m gonna have to free myself.”

            He whipped the knife out of the sheath at his thigh, and she had anticipated this very same move as she synced with his psyche, with the ghost of Remy in her head.  A neat movement of her left hand and she had caught his wrist mid-action, staying the knife before it could even get close to her.  And he grinned.

            “Gettin’ a little help again from de me ‘up there’?” he asked mockingly. “It’s useless, _chere_.  You can’t hold me off indefinitely.  And do you really think you’re powerful enough to sync wit’ my psyche _and_ use Leech’s power at de same time?  Slip up once, Rogue, and you’re finished.”

            “Ah’m willin’ t’ take the risk,” she grunted, shoving his wrist back and away from her, and in it came again, this time backhanded, from the left, and she twisted out of the way with only a split second to spare, feeling the white tip of the knife skim across the breast of her shirt, tear into the lapel of her jacket and slice half the sleeve from her arm…

            He jerked his left hand again, pulling her in close to him, the knife poised to strike again in his right… And she reacted without thinking, hooking his leg with her own and yanking it out from under him, momentarily forgetting _we’re tied t’gether, you idiot!_ and they tumbled to the ground together, her landing heavily on him, batting away the knife as it came into view again and again and again…

            And he used a move he’d always used on her, twisting his body, gathering hers with it, rolling them over so that she was beneath him, closer than close, trapping her body in a memory, so many memories…

            And he smirked.  As if to say, _I got you_ , and she raised her free hand, holding him back, a dam holding back the colossal weight of raging floodwaters, cracking, splintering, breaking …

            She struggled and she saw it, the flash of that knife coming towards her, like a dream – no, like a memory, the memory of light glinting off snow glinting off the metal in his hand… And now it was not that cold light but the orange glow of the raging fires about them that cast its tawny blush over the short length of the blade that seemed to come at her from so close and yet so far away.

            And she saw it again, that strange dilation of Time, everything grinding so slow, so fine, every molecule of this moment bleeding as if through a filter, a giant hourglass of awesome and horrific proportions, each grain of sand helpless against the overwhelming force of gravity, jostling one another for freedom, knowing that falling over the edge was impossible to resist, like birth, like death, like _love_ …

            And there it was again, clear as day.

            _Let this happen_.  _Do it_.

            And she did.

            Two simultaneous trains of thought, _let_ and _do_ , coming together in one harmonious moment of unity, and in the one instant that the knife struck her breastbone she channelled Sage’s power with everything that she had (and until that moment, she did not know how much she had in all her life), knowing that, even so, this one final, last-ditch attempt might not even work.

            She could hardly tell where one ended and the other began.  On the one hand there was the rupturing of skin and bone and nerves, the red flame of the knife sliding inside her, tearing only the physical; on the other was the slow build of a power that was alien to her, the finest filaments of _something_ hard and wiry skittering underneath the surface of her flesh, a white heat, a million pinpricks stabbing away at her in the midst of the agony that now bloomed, hot and wet, from her chest.

            But her mind… suddenly that was somewhere else, entirely divorced from her body.  Even as he drove the blade into her, she grasped his free hand in her own, the hands linked by the cuffs, and that charge, the electric shock of energy that was Sage’s power shot through their conjoined fingers, and she felt (or sensed, rollercoaster-like) those fine filaments burrowing through him, down, down, deeper, like the whirl of absorbing another down to the very core of their being and there, _there_ , there it was, some alien structure, some strange edifice, something that didn’t _belong_ …

            _Unfold.  Unwind.  Go back.  Focus.  Undo._

She heard Remy scream.

            And that was what drew her back into herself, the pain of her ravaged body as his own convulsed violently in a spasm that seemed to rock him to the very core.

            It must’ve been a mere few seconds before the entire episode was over.

            No sooner did it seem to have begun than she felt him collapse against her, motionless. 

            And at last Time righted itself, and all went quiet.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	16. The Salvage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remy finally has to face the aftermath of his actions and it’s far from pretty…

            Everything and nothing touched him in the darkness, and in this strange place between life and death, between something called heaven and hell, he lingered for a mere split second that lasted an age. 

            And in that place he sensed a figure born of some weird yet beautiful alchemy, nudging him with an odd persistence, saying _wake up…_

            And, without knowing how or why, he obeyed.

            The first thing he felt was her fingers, still interlaced with his own, her skin an expanse of clammy coolness against his.  His finger twitched, then another.  He moved his body and realised that it was his.

            “Rogue?” he spoke in a voice like the crunch of gravel.

            And, “Remy,” she replied somewhere very close, with relief, with sadness.  He heard it.  He shifted his head so that he could see her, their faces a mere inch or two apart, hers pinched and white yet smiling, her fingers curling involuntarily against his with a peculiar kind of triumph.

            He knew what she meant by it.  He knew because he felt it, his body still somehow consumed by traces of that odd flameless fire, searing down into him like an electric current and burning away some deeply rooted part of him – a parasite, clinging on for dear life – and he understood that, once and for all, Essex was _dead_ …

            “What de hell did you _do_?” he asked her, and that proud smile widened, touching beautiful, pain-flecked green eyes.

            “Sage’s power… jumpstartin’ genetic template do-hickeys… in reverse… or _somethin’_ …”

            For a moment he was confused, before the puzzle pieces slotted quietly into place – a memory, of himself, holding her trembling white hand in brutal contact with the slumbering form of Sage, an act he’d loathed to do with every fibre of his being, but that had served a nobler purpose after all…

            “Damn, woman, dat _hurt_ ,” he remonstrated, and her smile grew even wider; a sparkle even touched her eyes.

            “Ah know.  Ah’m sorry, sugah…”

            It was as she said the words that he felt it – a warm wetness spreading out over his chest.  He raised his hand to touch it, and when he drew it back he saw there was blood on it.  At first he thought it was his own.  Then horror flooded him.  It wasn’t simply the realisation of what it was, nor what he had done.  It was the realisation that it was what he had always been _meant_ to do.

            His eyes went wide and he scrambled to his knees, almost forgetting that they were still cuffed to one another.

            “ _Shit_!” was his only comment, as he saw what confronted him.  An image danced before his eyes in a sickening kind of harmony.

            _Rogue, under Sinister’s knife.  The blood pouring from her._

            An unavoidable truth.

            The knife was protruding from her breast, only a few inches of the blade visible from the torn fabric of her shirt.  It was black; he put his hand to it, and again – red – his palm shook as he held it in front of him.  His face was white.

            “Remy—” she began, and how she managed to sound calm was beyond even his capability to understand; she clasped their joined hands all the tighter, but he hardly heard or felt her, consumed as he was by the devastating realisation of this horrible and inescapable fact.

            “No no no no no no _no_!” he moaned in a tone of utter despair, bitter hate and self-loathing.  He should have known – no, he _had_ known.  Had _always_ known.  Even when he had stood in that room, the open page of Destiny’s Diaries staring up at him with all its brazen promise, he had known.  It had impelled him on this journey, this quest to save the only thing worth saving.  And it had drawn him here, to this moment, this moment when he had destroyed that very thing.  In facing this very demon he had been taken in by it.

            She saw it in his expression, heard it in his voice.  And she faced it in a way he never had.  With acceptance.

            “It’s okay, Remy,” she assured him weakly, meaning to squeeze his hand but only managing a feeble pressure. “You’re free of him now, sugah.  Ah _told_ you there was a way…”

            His hands hovered over the knife at her breast, as though he knew he should leave it in but couldn’t bear to do so.

            “You don’t understand,” he replied hoarsely. “I _knew_ dis was gonna happen, I did everyt’ing in my power to stop it!  But it was _me_ , Rogue, not Essex.  It was _me_ …”

            She frowned, not understanding… and he saw a spasm of pain take her, her eyes flutter, her breath grow slow, shallow… He’d seen this a hundred times before, had even watched on coldly whilst other men had died at his hands.   That awful moment that he had always steeled himself against, that instant of surrender, the stillness with which a human body would slip over that finest of lines from which it could never turn back.

            He saw it in her.

            And he saw himself in Irene’s room again, right before that image as he’d dared to face it for one last time.  The certainty that had suddenly inspired him with a notion that he could cheat this, that there wasn’t a thing in this world that could stop him.

            _And he thought, somewhere deep inside, this won’t happen, this can’t happen, it’s the future and it can be changed._

            And he saw now, very clearly, that it _could_ be changed.  That the events that had taken him to this place had also taken him to the only thing that could give him a chance of saving her.  Poetic rhythm.  Cause and effect.  Nothing less.

            He reached out instinctively with both hands, cradling her face in his palms, bringing her back with his warmth; and she opened her eyes again, but only because his touch demanded it.

            “Rogue,” he murmured her name in a voice that wavered with that same self-loathing, that obstinate refusal to _let go_ … And there was something else, as, for the first time in _years_ , he felt tears sting the back of his eyelids, tears of sorrow and anger and denial that he couldn’t bear to let fall. “You don’t know what I’ve done t’ keep you alive all these years,” he told her in a voice that nearly broke. “Everyt’ing I’ve done, all these decisions I’ve made, it’s all been because I can’t imagine a world wit’out you in it.  Fuck, lissen to me, _chere_.  I don’t _want_ you to die, Anna.  And there is no way in fuckin’ _hell_ I’m gonna let you die on me now.”

            He wrenched at the knife without another word and she gasped as the blade slid out of her, jarring her already frayed and tattered nerves; he tossed it aside, the metal clanging to a stop somewhere nearby, unheeded.  With both hands he scrabbled to stem the sudden torrent of blood, knowing he was hurting her, but knowing also that this was the only way _out_.

            “ _Remy_ …” she began in a voice full of agony, but he shushed her, willing her to save her strength.

            “I can stop dis,” he spoke with a sudden self-contained assurance. “I can make dis _right_.  I can use my _powers_ , Rogue.”

            His face was lined with determination; sweat was breaking on his brow.  His eyes seemed to bleed in the firelight.

            “You can’t reverse this,” she protested weakly, fighting for breath, seeming to guess what he was now thinking. “You don’t even know how far back your powers will let you go.  Remy, listen to me.  You could just end up takin’ us back to a time where you’re Sinister again…”

            “ _Non_.” He shook his head quickly, a perverse kind of exhilaration in him as he realised _I can cheat dis_. “I don’t mean _those_ powers.  I mean _these_ ones.”

            With one hand he tore open her shirt whilst the other held the pressure on her open wound.  Pain seared visibly through her as he brought both palms roughly into contact with her raw and bleeding flesh.

            “This is crazy, Remy…” she stammered, but he smiled shakily at her with a reckless confidence born of desperation.  No half measures.  All 110%.  It was what he did.  It was why he would succeed.

            “ _Non_.  It’s goin’ to _work_.”

            He concentrated.  Not on his hands, but on everything beneath them.  On that broken body, on that rent flesh.  He started slow.  That wisp of a charge, that controlled flare, waiting, gauging her reaction.  It stole the air out of her, making her gasp on a jolt of pure, unadulterated agony, as if he had ground sea salt right into the depths of that injury.  It almost tore him to bits to see it.

            “I’m sorry, _chere_ ,” he apologised through gritted teeth, knowing that he couldn’t stop now. “Dis gon’ hurt real bad.”

            She nodded, she bit her lip, she gathered herself tight inwards.

            And he saw it in her face as he teased it out, bit by bit, inch by inch, atom by atom.

            A symphony of pain, layer upon layer of dissonant harmony building into an agonising starburst of a crescendo.

            She screamed.

            And then all went silent.

 

*

 

            It was strange, this half-life.

            Or perhaps it was a double life, he wasn’t sure.

            Layer upon layer of memories, like silt on a river bank, gathered up on the shores of his consciousness, waiting for him to sift through them, to sort out what was his and what was not.

            He saw Rebecca, standing in the hallway of their London home in a pretty dress of sable velvet trimmed with Honiton lace.  Her glossy raven ringlets poking out from under a plain bonnet with the black veil thrown back to reveal her face white and pinched and strained with loss, agony, fear.  She was pinning a cape about her shoulders; several packed trunks surrounded her, the remnants of their once happy life together.

            “I can’t stay another moment, Nathaniel,” she was saying. “Not after what you did to our dear, poor Adam.”

            “Stay, Rebecca,” he replied desperately. “I will do anything you ask of me, if only you would stay.  Tell me how to atone for this terrible sin I have committed.  This sin which has consumed me, this terrible thirst for knowledge.  With your love I believe I can be redeemed – but only with you by my side, Rebecca, my dear wife.”

            “I have made up my mind,” was her cold reply, as the servants continued to come and go, loading her things into the carriage. “There is no longer any future for us, Nathaniel.  You are not the man I once knew.  Perhaps you _could_ redeem yourself.  But how could I look at you again and remember the madness that took you at the death of our beloved son?  Adam was born of your love, but your damned science – evolution, whatever it is called – it has turned you into a creature of hate.  Enough for you to tear apart the body of your own flesh and blood.” There was disgust in her features, cutting him to the bone. “Knowing what I know, seeing what I’ve seen – I could not _bear_ to stand in your presence any longer, let alone accept your touch.  No – it is no use – do not try to stop me.  There is nothing left to be saved.”

            And she left, shutting the door on him, on the very last thing that could have saved him, and somehow he had known she was right – that even if she had stayed, he would still have descended into madness… …

            And then he saw Belle, beautiful blue eyes rimmed red with the tears she had cried all night, tears that he had been the cause of.  Eyes that were now turned on him with the same coldness he had seen in Rebecca’s.  That only 24 hours earlier had been filled with love for him.

            “I love you, Belle,” he said the words that came so easily with her. “I did it for _you_.”

            But the coldness hadn’t waned.  It was joined by repulsion.

            “You t’ink it’s what I _wanted_ ,” she spat at him in disdain. “For you to _murder_ Julien?”

            “It was an accident,” he pleaded, knowing, nevertheless, that a part of it was not.

            “Even if it was,” she retorted, tears now starting to her eyes again, “and even if I could forgive you, I couldn’t _be_ with you, not knowin’ what you did to my brother, not knowin’ what it is you’re capable of.  It’s over, Remy.  I can’t love you.  Not anymore.”

            There was a difference, between _can’t love_ and _don’t love_.  He’d wanted to tell her that.  But he knew that her heart was already hardening towards him.  Even if any love for him remained, it would dissolve in time.  She was counting on it.

            And so, he did what he did to survive.

            Closed off that part of him, shut it down, buried it deep.  Preserved it like a dried out fossil.

            “I’ll always love you, Belle,” he’d told her. “I’ll never love anyone again.  Not like you.”

            And then… and then…

            And then he was here.

            Sitting by this bed, watching the gentle rise and fall of Rogue’s chest as she breathed.  The way she clung to life, despite the fact that he had been doomed to take it, that he had been doomed to destroy every love that had come his way.

            Would she hate him for it?  Would she walk away?

            She’d had ample opportunity before, and she’d never done so.

            He had stopped wondering why.

            The answers were in a series of books, diaries, written by a dead woman.

            They told him it was Fate, it was Destiny.

            But he told himself it was something simpler.

            It was love.  Rogue’s love for him.

            He didn’t get it.  Not fully.  There were some things that love wasn’t willing to risk; he knew that from bitter experience.  But Rogue took it.  She ran with it.  She gave it a whole new meaning.  She lived and breathed her love for him.  Like she couldn’t help it.  Like he deserved it, when _she_ was the one who deserved it.  This love that had always been too big for him to brave shouldering.  This love he’d allowed himself to feel despite himself.  That he’d run from when it had become too much for him to bear.

            He rubbed his eyes, feeling the tiredness behind them like a dull ache.

            He didn’t understand it.  But he knew, and had always known, one thing – that he didn’t want her to die.  That he didn’t want to lose what she gave him, nor the thing she made it possible for him to be.

_He allows himself to recall what he has pushed himself to forget._

_Rachel, splashing around in the lake down by the summer house.  Remembering, for the first time, what it is to be a kid.  Him, sitting there in the grass with a bottle of beer, trying to hide a smile because he’s supposed to be suspicious of her and her Hound senses, because he’s supposed to be the rational, logical one in their cosy little triad.  Rogue lies there beside him in the sun, catching his smile effortlessly because it’s what she does – catch him in his most vulnerable, wide open moments._

_“Look at that,” she says softly, appreciatively, as Rachel laughs in delight, intoxicated by the simple fact that fish are nipping her toes. “And there you were, ready to put her down for all that time.”_

_He says nothing, takes a swig of his beer.  But the corners of his lips are still giving away his smile._

_“She’s just a kid, Remy,” Rogue continues, refusing to back down until he admits it. “Yah can’t deny that.  And this makes you happy, doesn’t it.  Watchin’ her bein’ able to be a kid after all the hell you know she’s been through.”_

_He doesn’t bother to hide his smile now.  He places the bottle down beside him, says, “Yeah.  I guess it’s kinda cute.”_

_She gives a vexed tut behind him, as if she can hardly believe he can’t just go ahead and admit to himself that he’s happy, that he’s happy to be here with them.  He’s happy to be in this place where everything is peaceful and calm, and it feels like he has a family again.  Just like being back at the mansion.  Just like being back home in New Orleans._

_Just like the life he’d once planned with Belle._

_He tells her often.  He tells her that he thinks she makes him happy._

_He can’t even begin to count the ways he knows she does._

_She’s given him this, for a start.  These early summer afternoons that he doesn’t want to bring to an end, even if he knows he must.  The kid, playing in the sunshine.  Her, lying in the grass beside him.  Her companionship, her faith, her love.  Her reminder that beyond the shadows that have chased him, beyond the ghosts that have haunted him all his life… there is peace.  There is joy.  There is a life worth living._

            A life worth living.

            Remy smiled sadly.

            It was heartbreaking that she had been the one to teach him that it lay within his grasp, now, when he was where he was, beside her.  Willing her to keep living.

            “You need to sleep.”

            It was Forge, coming in to check on his patient.  When Remy had carried her back to the compound, holding her as if not knowing what to do with her, it was Forge who’d taken her from him, Forge who’d seen what had happened, who’d seen what he’d attempted to do, the slapdash cauterisation of her wound.  He’d taken her away from Remy, and Remy had folded.  He could barely remember what had happened after that.  He recalled Raven, somewhere in the blur of faces, her face so white that her eyes had almost seemed to bulge from her head.  And Logan, looking like he was fighting off the urge to skewer him with his claws.  He thought he might’ve welcomed it at that point, even if pain would have been the only thing to get him feeling again.

            “I ain’t sleepin’ till she wakes up,” he muttered stubbornly.

            “That could be a while,” Forge informed him, business-like.  Remy said nothing.  He wasn’t going to move and that was final.

            Forge sighed.  He drew up a chair next to Remy and said sympathetically: “There’s nothing you can do.  You did what you could to save her, and it worked.  The rest is up to her now.”

            He felt stupid, but he appreciated it.  He appreciated the fact that Forge was the only one who’d said a single kind word to him since he’d got here.  It was a simple thing, but he needed it.  He needed something to cancel out the sharpness of this guilt.

            But, indebted as he felt to Forge for those few simple words, he didn’t want to confess that he was right.  It wasn’t so much that he needed to be here when she woke up.  It was more that he needed to be here if she didn’t.

            Nevertheless Forge seemed to sense his thoughts.  He had seen them a thousand times before.

            “She’ll be fine,” he reassured Remy. “Just give her time.”

            Time. 

            It all seemed so ridiculous now.  Everything did.  Up topside the world had gone to shit; people were dying because of him, and all he could think about was her.

            He was losing it.  He needed to get it back.  That shield, that mask he always wore, that finest of defences between cold insouciance, cool professionalism, and this molten hot emotion that bubbled and boiled just below the surface.  He needed it desperately, but he didn’t have the strength to get it back.

            “You’re right,” he said at last, his gaze blank with tiredness as he stared at her. “I need to sleep.”

            Forge nodded approvingly.

            “I’ll call you if anything changes and—”

            “ _Non_ ,” he broke in quietly. “I ain’t movin’.”

            He put his head on the bed beside her and somehow he slept.

 

            When he awoke, Forge had gone.  Logan was there instead, leaning against the wall opposite.  His eyes had been on Rogue, but as Remy sat up straight, rubbed his face tiredly and worked out the knots in his joints, they had moved to Remy himself.

            “You are one lucky mutha,” Logan informed him coldly from across the room.

            “Dat she’s alive?” he asked hoarsely.

            “No.  That _you_ are, Gumbo.”

            Remy didn’t respond.  He didn’t know if it was bad luck or good luck that that was the case.

            “You’re lucky she cares about you,” the older man continued in a voice more akin to a growl. “Otherwise I woulda run outta excuses to run you through ages ago.”

            “You can do it, if you want,” Remy replied tiredly, disinterestedly. “Don’t matter much to me now.”

            Logan bared his teeth at him in feral disgust.

            “Liar.  You can’t wait for her to wake up so that you can start fuckin’ with her life again.  For that alone I could kill you.  But if I did, it’d kill _her_.  God knows why she loves you, LeBeau, but she does, even if it kills me to see it.”

            There wasn’t an answer he could have given to that, even if he’d had enough energy to do so.

            “Besides,” Logan continued relentlessly, “killin’ you now would be like givin’ a murderer the easy way outta his crimes.  I want you livin’, LeBeau.  So that you can see all the shit you’ve stirred up topside.”

            He swallowed, opened his mouth to speak… but stopped himself. 

            “And don’t even give me no bullshit about it not bein’ you back there,” Logan continued furiously, determined to give voice to his hatred and resentment whether Remy chose to give him an opening or not. “‘Cos at least _some_ of it was you.”

            And that was when Rogue stirred.  They both saw it and fell silent, their gazes drawn to her involuntarily.  And then, first one green eye opened, and then another, each one all the brighter in the white expanse of her face.

            “Remy—” she began in the thinnest of voices, and he found her hand, even as somewhere on the margins he registered Logan watching on with an injured scowl on his face.

            “I’m here, _chere_ ,” he murmured, interlacing her fingers with his own.  She smiled at him, the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

            “It worked,” she murmured back.

            “ _Oui_ ,” he answered.  A smile of his own was curving falteringly across his lips.  It was a smile of relief.

            “Irene was right…” she whispered, and his smile flickered.

            Because Irene – no, destiny – was the only thing that had given him the tools to save her.  His own motivations had been paltry and selfish in the face of it.  _Rogue_ knew the depth of what she owed to Irene.  Only _he_ wasn’t quite ready to accept it.

            “She got _some_ t’ings right, _chere_ ,” he conceded quietly.

            “Don’t congratulate yerselves just yet,” Logan piped up from the sidelines. “’Cos it’s fuckin’ World War Three goin’ on outside here.”

            Rogue frowned, and Remy was pissed at Logan for taking that smile away.

            “And there ain’t a thing about it in her diaries…” Rogue croaked dolefully.  Logan shook his head.

            “No.”

            Remy passed him a look, one that said _shut the fuck up_ before he turned his gaze back towards Rogue.

            “Hush now, _chere_ ,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about all dat now.  Save your strength until you need it.  Den we’ll t’ink about sortin’ out dis mess.”

            He squeezed her hand reassuringly.  And instead of squeezing it back she gave him a sorrowful glance, one that spoke the world of feelings she felt for him; her anger, her embattled love, her confusion…a glance that said _No_ , and _Yes_ and _Not so fast_ all at once.

            And even though he knew he didn’t deserve a single shred of tenderness from her after everything he’d put her through, it still hurt like motherfuck.

            “Rich comin’ from you, Cajun,” Logan was snarling derisively. “Especially since you’re the one who started it.”

            Remy said nothing.  He hadn’t expected it when Rogue answered for him, and he didn’t think Logan had either.

            “This is the way it had to be,” she spoke weakly. “None of this coulda been stopped.  Ah know that now.”

            “So what was it all for?” Logan couldn’t help but question angrily. “Irene brought us to this point, to this fuckin’ hell where New York City is in flames and they’re killin’ mutants like flies, and yet she leaves the rest of her fuckin’ diaries blank!  Why, in fuck’s name, would that _be?!_   Why would she bring this shit about and not give us a way to resolve it?”

            “Ah don’t know,” Rogue answered faintly, and Remy squeezed her hand again, hissing at the shorter man, “Shut de fuck up, Logan.”

            Rogue, however, continued, saying, “She wanted somethin’,” and Logan stared at her.

            “What?”

            Rogue’s eyes were closing again.  She looked exhausted.

            “Remy.  His power…”

            Logan sneered.

            “So what it all boils down to is this fuckin’ Cajun.  Again.” He glared at Remy. “Why always _him_?”

            “Ah don’t know,” Rogue said again with an overwhelming weariness.  Remy passed a hand over her forehead.

            “Shhh, _chere_ ,” he whispered tenderly. “Don’t t’ink about it.  Sleep.  Get well first.  We’ll worry later.”

            She didn’t protest.  She closed her eyes and after a while fell into a slumber.

            Logan followed him out when he figured it was safe enough to finally go and get something to eat.

            “You are one hell of a sonuvabitch, Cajun,” he came after him, all pitch and fire.  Remy didn’t even turn back to look at him.

            “And what was you hopin’ to gain by fuckin’ wit’ her head like dat, _mon ami_?” he asked pointedly, massaging the bridge of his nose tiredly as he walked down the corridor. “She’d only just woken up for Chrissakes.”

            Logan caught his shoulder and spun him roughly around, slamming his back into the wall.

            “Number one, Gambit,” he growled, “I ain’t your _mon ami_.  Number two – _someone_ has to have some fuckin’ answers for the havoc you’ve caused out there.  _Real_ people are dyin’!  And Rogue, thank fuck, is _not_.”

            Spittle was flecking Logan’s mouth.  Remy couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him this pissed.  And after all the grinding stress, suffering and fear of the past few days he couldn’t resist the opportunity to just go ahead and bite the hell back.

            “Guess I’m just selfish, Logan,” he retorted with a resigned shrug. “Guess I couldn’t give a shit about ‘real people’, as long as I have a real Rogue to touch and kiss and _fuck_.”

            It only took a split second for the claws to be unleashed and appear less than a millimetre away from his throat, but he wasn’t surprised – he’d been expecting it.

            “Say that again and you give me another reason to fuckin’ slice you in half,” Logan raged.

            “Y’know somet’ing, Logan,” Remy replied with just an edge of the old insufferable scoundrel working through his voice. “You real easy t’ get a rise out of.  Maybe you oughta stop takin’ life so seriously.  Maybe a good ol’ lay is what you need.”

            The claws punched the wall behind his ear, sending splinters of plaster slicing into his face.  In lieu of certain death, it felt goddamn good.  He needed it.  The rawness of pain, to give some substance to the guilt and the anger inside him. 

            “Go near Rogue again,” Logan hissed in his face with barely an inch between them, “and you are _dead_.”

            The claws retracted again; shards of plaster crumbled onto his shoulder, onto the ground at his feet.  Without another word or look, Logan swung round and stalked away from him.  There was a peculiar kind of triumph in Remy as he watched him go.

            “T’anks, _mon ami_!” he shouted after him, as Logan turned around the corner without once stopping or giving the impression that he had heard – Remy knew he had.  He wiped the dust from his shoulders, the blood from his cheek.  It wasn’t halfway enough to make him feel what he figured he should be feeling.  But it would have to do.  For now.

            He considered heading right back to Rogue’s room, but something made him hesitate.  It wasn’t Logan’s threats.  It was something else.

_She’ll be okay now, give her some rest and she’ll be up again right quick…_

            But that wasn’t it either.  It was the thing that Logan had prodded and pried to get at all through their conversation.

            His shame.

            He was ashamed of what he was and what he had done; he was ashamed that he had been taken in by Essex’s machinations, that Rogue had almost lost her life because of his rash selfishness.  It was the fact that he didn’t deserve to be in her sight, that he didn’t deserve her gaze or her touch or her kisses.  He didn’t even deserve the satisfaction of knowing she was all right, that soon she would recover.  It was the fact that the only thing he deserved was the knowledge that he had hurt her, that and all the humiliation and disgrace that came with it.  The hatred that everyone bore him for what he had done, for making them suffer whilst he sat beside her, waiting for her touches and her smiles.

            And there was another thing.

            There was the fact that Logan had just about as much a right to be there with her as he did.

            He gritted his teeth and turned away without a backward glance, not because he didn’t care but because if he went back to her he’d lose it.  He’d lose this finely stacked pile of cards and Logan… Logan would have won.

            _Forge takes her in his arms and Logan’s there, Logan’s hot on his heels as he makes to leave the room for the med bay, and Remy watches mutely from the sidelines as the wolfman shoots out an arm, stops Forge and says, “She ain’t gonna make it.”_

_And he can’t look, he can’t do a thing except prop himself up against a wall because he can almost see the look on Forge’s face, the look that says Logan’s right._

_But the Maker doesn’t say it._

_Instead he says, “We need to get her to the med bay,” in the calmest voice Remy’s ever heard considering the circumstances, and Logan growls, “You ain’t a fuckin’ doctor, Forge…”_

_And Forges replies, level, even;_

_“I’m the nearest thing to one we have here, step aside.”_

_Remy looks up then, up through the haze of his own battered conscience, his own roiling emotions, and he sees Logan grasp Rogue’s hand in his, press it to his cheek as if willing all of his strength into her; and he murmurs in a voice that breaks like gravel under tyres, “Take it, Rogue.  Take my power, please, darlin’.”_

_And Remy holds his breath._

_He sees it._

_He sees that Logan lied to him._

_Logan loves her._

_Logan can heal her in a way he can’t._

_He sees Rogue’s white face, half-conscious, and he can hardly bear it, even if he silently begs her to do it, to siphon off even the tiniest fraction of Logan’s healing factor, because he can face her dead far less than he can face the fact that it’s Logan who can save her._

_He can barely breathe._

_His stomach is lurching painfully, because he knows the cauterisation could kill her just as much as the knife wound could._

_He sees Logan press her hand to his lips and, “C’mon, stripes, absorb me, please, dammit!”_

_And he turns away._

_He can’t look._

_He can’t even face it when she accepts Logan’s gift, when she takes just a little bit of that elixir that will save her life._

_He slips away, knowing he can’t beat this._

_He can’t beat Logan’s gift, and he isn’t going to try._

_He stumbles out and walks until he’s alone and he can’t even hear the others anymore.  He leans against the nearest wall and slides to the floor.  He realises his face is wet and it perplexes him.  He doesn’t understand it._

_He’s scored a huge cross through the last hideous page of Destiny’s diary and he should be laughing but he can’t, he can’t do it.  He’s broken.  He’s done._

_“Anna,” he mutters; and it’s his only solace in all of this._

_The only comfort is, she’s alive._

_She’s alive and he has Logan to thank for it, Logan to hate for it._

_But she’s alive._

_And everything he has set out to do, he has done._

_Only now does he rake in the chips and find there’s a price._

 

*          *          *          *          *


	17. The Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Against a backdrop of growing conflict between mutants and statics, Rogue and Remy attempt to come to terms with the damage done to their relationship.

            Rogue stood alone on the banks of the lake in her mind.

            She wasn’t alone because the other psyches had deserted her – rather, she _preferred_ to be alone.  She was exhausted.  She needed time to take stock and re-evaluate.  She needed to figure out what to do next.

            She needed to disentangle this hard and painful knot inside her.

            “You did well, Rogue,” came a voice behind her – Irene’s.  Rogue did not look up.  She gazed at her reflection, a perfect mirror image in the calm and unmoving waters.

            “And is this the part where Ah’m supposed to thank you?” she asked bitterly.

            The old woman’s voice was soft.

            “For what, Rogue?”

            “For doin’ everythin’ you could to get me killed, to have me saved?”

            There was no reply from the shade of her foster mother – only the gentle cadence of the breeze rustling through the leaves of the great cedar tree.  Irene had never been good at giving explanations.  But Rogue found she wanted one now, more than anything.

            “Tell me why,” she finally demanded in a broken voice, turning towards the little old woman behind her. “Why _this_?” And she pulled open her shirt, showed her the wound at her breast, which was still open and bleeding but leaving no stain. “Was Ah meant to die?  Did you lead me all through the years towards _this_?  Did you preserve me just so Ah was s’pposed to meet my end _here_?”

            Irene looked at the unhealed wound with both a stillness and a sadness.

            “It was my sincerest hope, Rogue,” she began in a voice barely above a whisper, “that Remy LeBeau would find a way to undo what he had done to you.  It was another reason he had to regain his Omega level powers.  In order to give you back your life.”

            “And if he hadn’t?” Rogue persisted.

            “Then everything I have worked for would’ve come undone,” was the gentle reply.

            Rogue listened, shivered.  She drew her shirt back over the wound at her breast.

            “Remy knew,” she muttered numbly. “His psyche, Ah mean.  That was why he didn’t want me to go through with it.  He knew Ah ran the risk of bein’ killed at his hands.  You told him it was a possibility.  That a single moment could’ve tipped the balance between my life and my death.  Yet you managed to convince him to let me go ahead and do it.  _How?  Why?_   Is this _end purpose_ you keep talkin’ about so important?  Important enough for you to sacrifice so much – me, him, peace between mutants and statics… your own _life_?”

            She turned away, back to the lake, continued in a hard voice:

            “These are the things you’ve made, Irene.  The death of Senator Kelly.  A world with Sentinels and Hounds.  A civil war goin’ on outside that could drive mutants to extinction.  You nearly caused my death, nearly made Sinister all-powerful.  And yet, Ah’m still standin’.  And Sinister’s dead.”

            She looked back over her shoulder at her foster mother, her eyes cold.  Irene’s countenance was unsmiling.

            “Correct,” she said.

            “Correct,” Rogue echoed acidly. “So what does that tell me?  That Remy and Ah are still important.  That this isn’t over.  That there’s _still_ somethin’ you need us t’ do.”

            “The two of you, yes.” Irene nodded. “And one other.”

            Rogue’s mouth twisted bitterly.

            “And Ah s’ppose it’s too much for me to ask _who_ that might be?”

            Irene was silent and Rogue looked away again.

            “Ah thought so.”

            She kind of got it now.  Why Remy got so mad about this idea of him being a pawn.  It wasn’t always about glory and self-sacrifice and righteousness.  Sometimes it was just the dirty and the gritty.  Staring death in the face at the hands of someone you love more than life itself.  Being jostled around, this way and that, without understanding what it is you’re giving yourself to.  And really, the point was that she _didn’t_ know what this was all about anymore.  She was tired of giving everything she had whilst stumbling around in the dark.

            “Tell me one thing,” she spoke after a long, tense silence.

            “What is that?” Irene asked, still so calm, still so unmoved.

            “Tell me why there’s nothing in your diaries after this point.  Why everything’s blank.”

            And she could almost sense the withering smile on Irene’s face though she could not see it…

            “The answer is simple, Rogue,” was her answer. “I cannot go where Time does not lead.”

            She almost lost it then.  Here, in this place that was supposed above all others to be her haven, her sanctuary.  She whirled round and dark clouds rolled in above them; thunder rumbled overhead.

            “ _Stop. These. Riddles!_ ” she shouted, and the heavens opened, unleashing a torrent of rain, what seemed a day’s worth in a single moment.  But it didn’t touch them.  When the storm had finally petered out, Irene stood there, dry as a bone, as if cocooned from the rain by an invisible shield.  Rogue had unleashed her fury on her in the only way she knew how, and it hadn’t even touched her.

            “ _Damn you_!” she growled through set teeth, but Irene brushed aside the words.

            “You are angry,” she stated softly. “You have a right to be.  It pains me, Rogue, to see that yet again I have hurt you.  But I cannot yield, and you should know this.  Listen to me – do not let that wound fester.  Do not let your soul harbour hate and resentment.  It will destroy your body – and your body is important.  What it houses is very great.  It grows inside you, even now.” She gave a small pause, underscored the cryptic suggestion of her words with a meaningful silence.  Then she continued quickly, “As for what you call ‘riddles’, it is no riddle.  I did not record what would happen beyond this point because I could not see it.  I looked, and my sight failed me.  There was, I should say, a great _anomaly_ preventing me from seeing the future, try though I might.  No,” she silenced Rogue before she could question her any further, “do not ask me to explain it more clearly to you.  There are no words that will suffice to do so.  For a long time, I was confused by it myself.  It can only be explained through _other_ senses.  It is something that _should not be_.”

            “So it is _wrong_?” Rogue questioned. “The wrong you are trying to right?”

            “Perhaps.  I am not sure.  Perhaps it is a wrong that is _right_.” Irene sighed, for the first time showing concern, frustration. “I was – _am_ – unable to penetrate it.  I had grown accustomed to the future revealing its secrets to me.  But Time has kept this hidden.  It is impossible for me to decipher.  And so.”

            She said those last words with a note of resignation.  Finality.  And Rogue drew the line, made the conclusion.

            “So from here on in, we’re on our own,” she breathed.  And Irene nodded.

            “On your own,” she murmured. “And outside of Time.”

 

*

 

            When she next awoke, it was to see Logan sitting next to her, looking down into her face.

            “Hey,” he said gruffly, his way of greeting.  She smiled.

            “Hey.”

            She sat up slowly, painstakingly, even though it hurt.  He didn’t try to stop her.  Just let her get on with it, to test her strength.  He had precious little time for her to be wallowing in bed when she could be getting ready to fight again.  She sensed that was exactly what he was thinking.

            “Where’s Remy?” she asked, surprised not to see him there by her side.  Logan’s expression was belligerent.

            “Dunno.  He’s been keepin’ a low profile lately. Prob’ly a good idea given how bad he fucked up.”

            Rogue bit her lip, unable to deny the probable truth in Logan’s statement.  When she’d last asked Forge about Remy’s whereabouts, he’d told her that he’d barely seen him the past few days.  It was always ‘he left before lunch’ or ‘he helped evacuating the civs but we haven’t seen him since’, and she knew… she just knew that whilst he was trying to help out all he could, the shame was sharp enough to draw him away from every positive experience left to their benighted little coterie.  He had even denied himself her presence. 

            And she knew that that was exactly what Logan thought he deserved.  The animosity in him could demand nothing less.  A look in his face told her just how much his loathing of the Cajun was eating him up.  She frowned.

            “Ah know what you think about Remy,” she told him in a low voice. “Ah guess in some ways Ah might even agree with you.  But he didn’t _want_ for any of this to happen.  You _know_ that, Logan. You’ve gotta stop hatin’ him for that.”

Logan glowered.

            “You might be right, stripes.  But he’s still a fuckin’ asshole.”

            She bit her lip.

            “Ah know what you did for me, Logan,” she whispered. “And Ah’m grateful for it.  But… Ah’m sorry.  Ah _can’t_.”

            “I know,” he said. “Don’t mean I gotta like it.”

 

            And so it was Logan she got by her bedside, every day for a week.  A poor substitute, who never laughed and never smiled, who, day by day, looked more and more worn and ground down by whatever it was that he was experiencing on the outside.  One day he came in full of scars that she sat and watched heal over the entire duration of his visit.  He never gave her details; he wanted to save her the grief.  But it was the not knowing those details that somehow made it worse.  It was the tortured imaginings that replaced them that tied her stomach in knots and made her want to get out and _do something_.

            And she would’ve done, if Forge and Logan hadn’t been standing guard over her practically every moment of every day.

            The same thing would play out over several gruelling days; and sometimes she’d catch a glimpse of Remy, when he’d poke his head round the door to check in on her, always only to withdraw again whenever he was met with Logan’s antagonistic glare.  And so the painful need to just talk things out between them remained unappeased, until Rogue was almost tempted to just ask Logan to back off and give both her and Remy a moment to themselves.

            It turned out she didn’t need to.

            Before she even saw Logan again, Gambit made an appearance first.

            He looked in one morning when she’d finally felt strong enough to get out of bed, and seemed surprised to find that she was alone.  She’d just finished changing into a fresh pair of pajamas, and she wasn’t sure exactly what kind of look she’d given him when he’d turned up, but it must’ve been something ambivalent because when he stepped inside he didn’t quite move out of the no man’s land of the doorway.

            “Rogue,” he said.  And;

            “Remy,” she returned.

            It was all either of them could manage to get out. 

            She laid aside her dirty laundry and looked at him.

            He wasn’t tongue-tied exactly; but there was a look on his face, that same old expression of controlled calm that she’d seen often enough to read.

            It was him waiting, him assessing, and she wasn’t going to give the luxury of making things easy for him.  So she stood there and said nothing.  She waited for him as he waited for her.  And he blinked first.

            “I’m headin’ out wit’ Logan and de others,” he told her finally, unnecessarily.  She stared at him, continued to wait.  After a moment he cleared out his throat and began again. “Looks like there’s somet’ing big goin’ down in Central Park… Sentinels tearin’ it up and stuff… Well.  We need all de help we can get.”

            “You want me to give you a round of applause or somethin’?” she said quietly.  There was no sarcasm in her tone, but her softness hurt him harder than any scorn.  His jaw twitched visibly.

            “I ain’t got time t’ hang around right now,” he replied as evenly as he could. “But we need t’ talk, _chere_.” He paused momentarily, as if uncertain how to continue; and in those few beats of silence she nodded her agreement.  It gave him enough heart to carry on. “I should be back dis evenin’.  If you still figure you wanna talk, meet me up on de roof ‘bout ten.  No pressure or nothin’.  I’ll be there whether you make it or not.”

            He lingered a moment, waiting for some form of confirmation from her; but even if she’d found something to say the conversation was curtailed by Logan appearing in the doorway.  He didn’t even acknowledge Gambit, but the scowl on his face was acknowledgement enough.

            “We’re headin’ out,” he informed her gruffly. “Some fuckin’ mutant idiots led some Sentinels into Central Park – there’s a triage post set up there and someone’s gotta get the civs outta the line o’ fire…”

            She nodded wordlessly, and he shot Gambit a sideways glance and glowered.  It was enough to make the younger man back away.

            “I’m glad you’re okay, Rogue,” he concluded in a low voice, and swept out the room without another word.  Logan glared after him vehemently, giving the impression that he could strike him dead with a glance.

            “Hope he wasn’t givin’ you no trouble…” he growled, but she cut him off, saying firmly; “You guys need to go.  Ah ain’t gonna keep you.  Y’all just get back safe, okay?”

            He said nothing more, but gave a grave-faced nod; and Rogue watched on silently as he turned and left the room.

 

*

 

            The idea that she could delay talking things over with Remy another moment was almost as gut-wrenching to her as the idea of talking to him at all.  For days now she’d been waiting on tenterhooks for them to have a moment to just get this out, for him to finally fill in all the gaps and tell her what she needed so desperately to know.

            But now that that moment was so soon upon her she found herself feeling achingly nervous.  All the hours spent without the others that day seemed to eat her up and devour her whole.  She sat in silence by Emma’s beside, watching the White Queen battle her life-threatening injuries, feeling both glad and guilty that her own leeching powers had given her the option of absorbing Logan’s healing factor, thus saving her own life.  She hadn’t had to steal a lot, but it had been enough.  Physically, she was pretty much healed.  Mentally, emotionally… Well, she was still riding that rollercoaster and she was tired enough of it now to want it to end.

            She stared at the clock at the other end of the med bay.

            She could hardly wait for ten p.m. to come round.

 

            And then at last it came.  She slipped her leather jacket over her pyjamas, checked to see that Forge’s tiny disruptor was still in her pocket.  It was.  And that was about all the safety she figured she’d need.  She took the elevator, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the cold of the autumn night.  It was a while since she’d been out topside, and after the relative closeness of the atmosphere downstairs the chill was almost bitingly cold.

            The elevator juddered to a halt and the doors swished open impatiently.  She stepped out, felt the coolness of the night brush her face.  What she saw when she stood there made her stomach lurch miserably.  There were fires in the far distance, and smoke was curling up from almost everywhere else.  Broken buildings and twisted wreckage clawed at the nightscape; searchlights swept the sky, helicopters grazed the rooftops.  The sound of a siren wailed from an unidentifiable location far away.

            And standing on the edge of the roof was Remy, looking out at it all.

            The doors clanged shut behind her, signalling her presence; but he didn’t look round at all.  He stood still, as though made of stone, as she walked slowly, painfully through the gravel towards him.  He didn’t even turn to look at her, even when she was standing right there beside him.

            “It ain’t safe t’ be here,” she told him, and the corner of his mouth curled slightly.

            “Was gonna say de same t’ing t’ you, _chere_.”        

            It was then that she noticed that he had been thumbing a key lightly between his thumb and forefinger, a long, thin, iron key that looked battered and worn in his hand; and she realised that she had seen it before, somewhere, some time, that she couldn’t place…

            He said nothing.  He slipped the key into the inner pocket of his duster and then added, after a moment of silence, “Got Forge’s disruptor.  So dey won’t pick up on me unless I go do somet’ing stupid like blow up de entire block.”

            She wished he wouldn’t joke about it.  The idea that he could actually do that was distinctly unfunny.

            “What if the searchlights hit us?” she asked.

            “Dey won’t,” he answered with certainty. “Dey occupied by somet’ing goin’ on down dere.” He pointed over to where the large pocket of fire was lighting up the distance. “Prob’ly de leftovers from dat ragtag band of rebels Logan and Raven got t’gether this mornin’ – leftovers who escaped from Essex’s lab.  You know how it is.  Create a distraction, get de civs outta da war zone.  Den de military got out a Sentinel dat had been in reserve.  Wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell ya.”

            She looked at him curiously.

            “So why didn’t you destroy it?”

            He laughed humourlessly.

            “Dat’d be one good fuckin’ way of fannin’ de flames, _chere_ – ‘scuse de pun.” His tone was dry. “B’sides, if I’da done dat, I t’ink Logan would’ve _actually_ killed me.  He’s been threatenin’ to do it for a while now, but I think dat woulda tipped him over de edge.” There was a cigarette sleeping in his right hand and he raised it to his lips, sucking on it thoughtfully before continuing.

            “Was kinda hard to get a moment t’ talk t’ you, Rogue,” he said gently, quietly, blowing aside smoke in a cascade; she watched it dissipate on the breeze. “What wit’ Logan by your side pretty much 24/7.  I’m grateful to him for what he did t’ save you and all…  But he sure does make it kinda hard to get a look in where you’re concerned.  Was kinda hopin’ we coulda had dis little chat sooner.”

            She gave a small grunt of agreement.

            “He’s just worried you’ll end up fuckin’ me over again…”

            “Heh.” He laughed humourlessly, put the cigarette to his lips once more. “You don’t need to say it.  He don’t neither.  Him and everyone else have been doin’ a pretty good job of tellin’ me they don’t trust me.”

            There was a suggestion – just a suggestion – of regret in his voice.  There was a time she knew he would’ve kicked himself rather than give away even a hint of the conscience he was feeling, but she was good enough now to read between the lines where his shielding was concerned.

            “Well, we’re here now, Remy,” she spoke, shivering slightly in the cold and drawing her arms closer around her. “And Ah ain’t sure Ah even know where to begin now that we _are_ here.” She frowned, feeling the almost fully healed wound at her breast twinge painfully.  She drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “Ah guess Ah could start by askin’ you _why_ , though.  Like why you decided it’d be a good idea to put me through all that shit back at Sinister’s labs just to get your full powers back.  Especially when you said you _knew_ that you were gonna end up shoving a knife in mah chest.”

            Her accent was thicker, rough and clipped with emotion.  He heard it.  His lips tilted into a grim slant.

            “You’re right,” he agreed seriously. “Ain’t no good place t’ begin wit’ dis, _chere_.” He blew smoke again, considering.  When he looked aside at her she saw for the first time the bruise on his cheek, the graze on his chin, the caked blood on his lip – evidence, she guessed, of his latest scrap with the Sentinels.  She swallowed, surprised at her own reaction to his injuries.  They’d patched up one another’s wounds often enough for it to have become a token of intimacy between them, and the sudden urge she felt to soothe his pain took her completely unawares – she held it down with an effort.

            “Remember when I told you dat I took you out of de Brotherhood to get you away from all de shit dey was makin’ you do?” he continued after a moment of reflection. “Truth is, dat was a lie.  Well, it was a half lie anyway.” He threw the cigarette to his feet, stubbed it out with his boot heel.  His gaze was pensive. “While you were busy healin’ up after de Hound Pens, I spent a lotta time casin’ out your people.  Seein’ what dey was doin’, what made Mystique tick.  Didn’t take long t’ figure it out.  There’s only one t’ing dat drives dat woman, and dat’s Destiny’s Diaries.” He paused, gave her a sidelong glance. “Of course, as soon as I’d figured dat out, I had to have a look at them.”

            Rogue had been prepared to hear and feel a lot of things during this conversation, but she hadn’t in her wildest dreams ever reckoned she’d hear _that_.  She gaped at him in horrified disbelief.

            “You looked into the Diaries?!” she exclaimed.  He met her gaze calmly.

            “Yeah.  More den once actually.”

            “And you saw—”

            She faltered to a stop, unable to say it, and he finished for her without missing a beat.

            “Sinister killin’ you?  Yes.”

            She opened her mouth, closed it, wrapping her mind round this latest revelation with difficulty.

            “You knew for _all this time?_ ” she finally managed to get out.

            “Yes.”

            She stared at him, still not quite able to believe it.

            “Then before we left New York… when we were on the way to Chicago… When you left again to go back to Essex… You _knew_ …”

            “Yes,” he answered simply.

            She drew in a shuddering breath, let it out.  All those weeks, all those months after they had left the Brotherhood in New York were suddenly cast in a different dimension.  She tried to get her head round what it meant.  She couldn’t.

            “Why so surprised, _chere_?” he asked her seriously.

            “Ah dunno…” she stumbled around the words. “Just… Yah lived knowin’ that for such a long time… And yah never _said_ anythin’…”

            He half-smiled.

            “And you t’ink I woulda told you?” He laughed quietly. “Truth is, I didn’t really fully believe it.  Not until…”

            “Until what?”

            “Until it happened.” He looked down at his hands, the scars on them, as though he could read in them the lines of his fate. “Didn’t figure for one moment dat it’d be _me_ , not Sinister.  Well, I guess I _was_ Sinny.  For a while.”  His smile was wry.

            “You believed in the prophecies enough to leave me in Chicago,” she murmured, fitting the puzzle pieces together slowly. “ _That_ was the real reason you went to kill Essex, wasn’t it.”

            He laughed again, with more than just a hint of self-deprecation in the sound.

            “I believed in them enough to do a lotta things, Rogue,” he admitted. “I believed enough dat your life might be in danger.  After what happened down in Ahab’s pens, Essex didn’t know dat you were still alive.  I had to spirit you away somehow, before he did.” He smirked. “I don’t like Logan, but I can trust him wit’ one t’ing, and dat’s your welfare.  So a plan started t’ form in my mind.  Totally unplanned, totally spur of de moment.  Clarity had told me he had a lead on Logan.  So I figured I’d get you out from under Sinny’s nose, have you safe in Chicago.  And den I went off to put paid to Sinny and make sure Destiny’s future didn’t happen.”

            “But something changed,” she continued the story quietly. “He baited you with the fact that you were his son…”

            “ _Oui_.” He let out a sigh. “And de fact dat he couldn’t _be_ killed.  Amanda Mueller told me dat he’d planted his genetic memory into certain mutants so dat he could carry on livin’ after death.  De Cronos project, he called it.  His insane bid for immortality.” He frowned darkly.

            “But what made you go back to Essex?” she asked him. “Why didn’t you come back to me and the others?”

            “Because by takin’ you away from Irene and Mystique, I’d accidentally revealed your existence to Sinister,” he answered matter-of-factly. “Seemed everyt’ing I did actually brought you closer to him. So I had to find another way to protect you from him. Irene told me it was possible.”

            She glanced at him sharply.

            “You went and saw Irene?”

            “Yes.  I was dat desperate.” He looked at her, the warmth of his smile briefly lighting his face. “She told me dat if I got my original powers back, I’d have one sure-fire way of stoppin’ Sinister from killin’ you.  She told me dat I’d have de ability to control Time.  Dat I could rewind your death.  Dat I could make everyt’ing better again.”

            He looked aside suddenly, in an effort, she knew, to hide the fullness of his emotions from her.  It was a full minute before he could speak again and when he did his voice was gruff.   

            “You dunno what it was like, Rogue.  _Livin’_ , knowin’ dat every breath I took was leadin’ me closer and closer to de possibility of your death.  Lookin’ in de Diaries had proven to me dat Irene _never_ got things wrong.  And it weighed heavy on me, _chere_.  It weighed heavier than anyt’ing I’ve ever known.”

            He halted abruptly and lit another cigarette – no powers – she saw the antique lighter shake in his hand.  When it was lit he took a long drag, like his life depended on it; the breath he let out trembled, the smoke tumbling out in a torrent.  It seemed to give him sustenance.

            “De only way I could think of to stop everything was to rewind time,” he murmured when the smoke had cleared. “Fuck – it was de _only_ thing I could think of.  De only way out; de only means of escape.  And for it to work I needed Essex t’ give me back my powers.  I was prepared to make any deal wit’ him.  _Any_ deal, Rogue.” He raised his eyes to hers again, this time held them. “I wasn’t prepared for de fact dat _you_ were de t’ing he wanted in return.”

            His accent was thicker than usual, his voice hoarse.  He could only manage to hold her gaze for a few brief moments before dropping it once more.  Beneath the mask of equanimity she saw pain scored there, flickering briefly before becoming hidden once more.

            “God knew Essex could never have wanted you for anyt’ing good,” he muttered darkly. “But there was one t’ing worse than him hurting you, and dat was him _killin’_ you.  I had no way of knowin’ what he wanted you for, what it was he planned t’ do t’ you.  I figured all he wanted was t’ set you up for his Cronos experiment – as a test subject in his pursuit for immortality.  Dat could only mean one t’ing – dat he’d keep you _alive_.  It was de only t’ing I had left to play wit’, Rogue, to _hope_ for.”

            He pulled on the cigarette again, looking away from her.  And she took in a breath, realising how hard she had been holding herself throughout his entire speech, as she began slowly – though only half-willingly – to understand.

            He had taken a gargantuan risk – on the one hand gambling with her life, on the other with her sanity and, even more, her love for him.

            The irony was that his gamble had failed.

            Sinister _had_ outmanoeuvred him.

            The only thing that had brought him out the other side was Irene’s well-crafted plan, one she had put in place decades ago.  That plan alone had allowed Rogue to save him; and he her.

            She knew he realised all this, and that it was the knowledge of that failure that outweighed every other possible outcome.  If not for Irene, Rogue would be dead and he would be Sinister.  He knew it, and so did she.

            “You took one helluva fuckin’ risk, Gambit…” she muttered, shuddering, and he laughed caustically.

            “You know how I get, Rogue,” he spoke in a voice that was trying for lightness, but that was lined with too much bitterness and self-recrimination to pass. “I see somet’ing I want, I go into homin’ mode.  And let’s be honest about dis, shall we?  I didn’t pull any of dis shit because I was feelin’ _noble_.  I did it because I wanted _you_.”

            He looked at her full on then, his eyes burning bright in the darkness of a city that never slept.  That one glance was so visceral, so full of unrepentant yet restrained desire that it stirred her more than anything else she’d heard or encountered that evening.  It made her uncomfortable and it made her burn, and it churned away at all the conflicting thoughts and emotions that had been tormenting her since his apparent betrayal.

            “If yah wanted me yah sure have a fucked up way of showin’ it, Remy…” she grumbled, and his smile was twisted.

            “Rogue,” he began patiently. “Don’t you get it?  Essex was _always_ gonna want you.  And he wouldn’t rest until he _had_ you.  I could never have you if he was still alive.” He paused, musing. “S’funny.  If life had dealt me another hand I coulda spent de rest of my life workin’ for Sinny and not given a shit.  He was a great boss.  Gave me everyt’ing I wanted and let me get on wit’ how I wanted t’ live my life.  He coulda asked me t’ do anyt’ing and I prob’ly woulda done it.  Still… After what happened at de Hound Pens… It was nice to be free from him.  To go underground.  And I woulda stayed underground if I’d’a had half a chance.  But if he’d’a asked me to go back to him… Sure.  I woulda done it.”

            He looked at her again, his gaze penetrating.

            “But den he had to go meddlin’ wit’ de one t’ing I wasn’t gonna stand anyone fuckin’ wit’.  _You, chere_.  He messed wit’ you – he messed wit’ _us_.  Dat was one t’ing he shouldn’t’a touched, Rogue.  From de moment he did dat, I got it.  If he was around, there wasn’t gonna be a you.  There wasn’t gonna be an us.  And if dat was de case… I was gonna haveta fight tooth and nail for what I wanted.” He looked aside again, put the cigarette to his lips. “Bottom line, Rogue.  I’m a selfish man.  I want what I want.  I want to live my life de way I wanna live it.  Came a time I decided, I wanted _you_ in it.  I wasn’t gonna be satisfied unless you were.  Sinister went meddlin’ wit’ de t’ing I wanted more den anyt’ing else.  I wasn’t gon’ let it lie.”

            He halted, his eyes moving to hers again.  She didn’t think she’d breathed till that moment.  All the words she’d come here expecting to say had gone.

            “You gonna call me selfish, _p’tit_?” he asked her outright when she remained silent; and _that_ was when the words came.

            “Remy, you are the most _grabby_ fuckin’ man alive.  But if this is your way of sayin’ you wanted us to _be_ together, Ah guess Ah can’t quite bring mahself to _blame_ you for it.”

            He laughed then, softly, quietly.

            “You can blame me for it, _chere_.  I know de hell I put you through.  And I hated t’ do dat.  But I couldn’t stand de thought of losin’ you.  And even if I ended up forfeitin’ all your love, I’d have de consolation of knowin’ dat Sinister wasn’t gonna murder you leastways.”

            He finished the sentence abruptly, recalling, perhaps, how it had never been Sinister who was intended to take her life, but himself.  He turned aside, shivering impulsively, tossing away the cigarette and planting his hands firmly in his pockets as he stood on the edge of the roof, looking out into the distance with a dark frown.  The helicopters were now hovering busily over a single, fire-illuminated spot.

            Rogue watched him struggle with himself whilst her own feelings pulled and twisted and tugged at her with a viciousness that refused to leave her be.  She understood now, even if the rashness of his actions still rubbed her raw.  He _had_ been selfish – but then, she had to ask herself whether, if she had been in his position, she wouldn’t have done the same thing.  Lord knew she still wanted _him_ more than anything – in spite of everything he had put her through.  And if she wanted him _that_ much, then wouldn’t she have been willing to play the most dangerous game for possession of him?

            She wasn’t quite ready to answer that question, but the fact that she was able to admit to herself that she _did_ still want him in her life galvanised her.  She took the few steps to stand beside him at the roof’s edge, asking him quietly:

            “There’s one thing Ah don’t get, Remy.  Yah said you needed your full powers in order to save me.  But you never used them anyway.  You never turned back time…”

            He almost looked surprised that she should ask him the question.

            “Of course I didn’t,” he replied.

            “Why?”

            “Rogue,” he answered painfully. “Think about it.  What you said was right.  If I’d’a tried to rewind your death, I could’ve ended up hurtin’ you again and again and again.  Every way I looked at it, I would still have Sinister inside me and I’d try to kill you over and over.  And de idea of livin’ through _that_ …” He halted, unable to say it.  It took him a full minute to compose himself.  When he spoke again, his tone was even once more. “But gettin’ back my original powers had given me another option.” He opened his hands again, considered them sadly. “When I was a kid,” he carried on softly, “I used t’ have dis trick.  If I got hurt, I’d cauterise de wound and all I’d have left was a scar.  I didn’t even t’ink about it till de moment I was right dere wit’ you in my arms.  It was long shot – I hadn’t ever tried de power on any wound as bad as dat.  But I took de shot.  And it worked.”

            He dared to look at her again then, at the star-shaped tail end of the scar that just poked out the neckline of her pyjamas.

            “So, Irene was right,” he finished, his hands working unconsciously at his sides, fighting an impulse, she knew, to touch her. “But not in the way she thought she would be.”

            “Ah dunno,” Rogue disagreed quietly. “Ah think Irene told you exactly what you needed to hear to make the choice that you did.”

            “You’re probably right.” He smiled wanly. “But den why did she make me capable of doin’ _dis_?”

            And he glanced back over his shoulder at the broken city with an expression of both self-loathing and puzzlement.

            “It wasn’t _this_ that she wanted,” Rogue murmured, suddenly realising it. “This was just the price she had to pay, knowin’ that Sinister would bind himself to you, knowin’ what he would make you capable of.”

            He looked back at her with a frown, hard, disbelieving.

            “Dat’s one hell of a price to pay,” he muttered darkly. “And for what?”

            “Ah don’t know.” She shuddered, this time at the coolness of the night time breeze.  She pondered on Irene’s motivations, reasoned things out slowly. “It was your power she wanted,” she rationalised in a low voice. “She knew that when Sinister restored your Omega level powers, he would implant his genetic code in you.  That was the risk she took.  All this suffering and destruction, for one thing – _your powers_ , Remy.  It has to be.”

            She raised her eyes to his; he said the only thing he could.

            “ _Why_?”

            The question lingered between them.  And both seemed to hit upon the answer in the very same moment.  Neither of them liked to say it.

            “De pages were blank…” he began slowly.

            “B’cause she couldn’t see the future after this point,” she continued where he left off.

            “Because somet’ing was in her way…”

            “An anomaly, she called it.”

            “An anomaly _in time_ …”

            “Someone screwin’ with it…”

            “Someone _changin’_ it…”

            “ _You_ ,” she whispered.

            “ _Me_ ,” he finished.

            They stared at one another, eyes wide, unable to quite believe it.  He broke it first.  Looked away.  Licked his lips.  Knotted his brows.

            “ _Non_ ,” he muttered. “It ain’t possible.”

            “It _is_ ,” she insisted urgently. “Ah _saw_ you do it!”

            “You saw me freeze time for just a little while,” he corrected her.

            “So?  That doesn’t mean that’s all you’re capable of!”

            He glanced at her with a perturbed look.

            “If you’re sayin’ dat I can rewind all dis and start it all over again, you’re wrong.”

            “ _Why_?”

            “Because of de same reason I couldn’t rewind your death, _chere_.  How far back do I go, Rogue?  Where do I stop?  How do I know what it is dat will even make a difference?  If I go back to a time when I’m Sinny, I’ll just end up startin’ dis all over again.”

            “So go back _before_ that,” she persevered, unable to see any other way.

            “And what den?  We go back to you and me in Sinister’s lab.  We go back to me about to have de surgery to restore my powers.  De moment when Sinister is about to implant me wit’ his genetic memory.  We have two options.  Let him do de surgery, and somehow prevent Raven from killin’ him and activating his genetic memory in me; but den it’ll just lie dormant in me until he _does_ die.  Or: stop him from doin’ de surgery and I don’t get my powers back.”

            “Then go back _before_ that.”

            “And how do we know it’s goin’ to make a difference, Rogue?  How do we know what future we’ll make by changin’ de slightest of t’ings?  How do we know it’s any better den what we have now?”

            She exhaled heavily at his words, frustrated.

            “You’ve thought a lot about this,” she remarked caustically.  He shrugged.

            “I’ve had a lot of time to t’ink while you’ve been recuperatin’,” he explained dryly. “I’ve had a lot of time to test out dis power too.  What it does.  What its limitations are.” He paused and gave a half-laugh. “Not dat it _has_ any limitations.  It’s _my_ limitations we’re talkin’ about, _chere_.  If I had time to practice, I guess I could probably screw wit’ t’ings in a major way.  But it ain’t like I got time to practice, if I gotta find a way of usin’ dis power to stop mutants and statics from tearin’ each other apart.” He gazed out to the horizon.  One of the helicopters had flown off while they had been talking; the fire had grown dimmer, but it was still blazing. “Besides which,” he added in a lower tone, “dese powers scare de fuckin’ shit outta me.”

            “You’ve been practisin’?” she asked, fascinated despite herself.

            “ _Oui_.” He nodded. “Look – I’ll show you.”

            He picked up some of the gravel beside him, cast the stones a few feet into the air.  Just at the point where they when they were about to rain down on them, they stopped mid-air.  Hung, suspended, like coal black stars in the night.  Rogue reached out, unable to help herself.  She touched one lightly, felt a slight resistance.  She pushed harder, and harder still, feeling it push back against the pressure of her finger, until it last it seemed to come dislodged from whatever was holding it there and fell, clattering to the floor at her feet.  The rest held still, and she watched as they oscillated slightly, dancing back and forth along the trajectory of their fall, to and fro, to and fro, backwards and forwards, until the invisible force let them go and they dropped out of the air and back to the ground.

            She looked at Remy – he hadn’t even broken a sweat.  It was clear he’d performed this particular trick a number of times now.

            “ _How_?” she asked him in a hushed tone.

            He shrugged – a usual token of false modesty that this time he entirely meant.

            “By kinda doin’ de whole chargin’ thing in reverse.  Time has a kinetic flow, just like everythin’ else – it’s all just a case of manipulatin’ those particles of spacetime.  Deceleratin’ them, bringin’ them to a standstill.  Chargin’ them gets them movin’ again.”

            She stared.

            “Lemme get this straight,” she began after a long drawn out pause. “You’re tellin’ me that _that’s_ what you’ve been capable of all along?  Ah mean, since birth?  Until Essex excised that part of your brain?”

            He nodded.

            “Dat’s about it.”

            “Wow,” she murmured appreciatively.

            “Not really,” he replied modestly. He watched her pick up one of the pebbles at their feet, stare at it in fascination, as if _it_ held all the power and it couldn’t possibly have been him. “Those are just pebbles,” he interjected, seeing her expression. “Distortin’ their movement through the fourth dimension doesn’t take a helluva lot of effort, ‘cos dey so small.  I could do what I did just dere for a day and a half and it wouldn’t take a lot outta me.  Dis though…” And he looked out towards the city, “ _dis_ takes somet’ing more.”

            It took her a moment to realise what he’d done.  It first manifested itself in a lingering sense of strangeness, an impression that something was not quite right, something that she couldn’t put a name to.  A stillness in the air, an uncanny repose that brought to mind the image of Irene’s body laid out, lifeless, on her bed.

            And then she began to understand.  There was no breeze, no sound, no movement.  When she looked out over the horizon, to what had been the centre of such flustered activity for a while now, she saw the helicopter motionless, the flames stationary, the plumes of smoke static as though in a painting – a mere moment captured in time.

            It was just her and him in a world that had stopped.

            “You’ve stopped the whole city…” she whispered in awed wonder and he nodded, his features calm, his face showing no sign of fatigue.

            “Yes.  Just de city.”

            “ _Just_ the city?” The concept was beginning to frighten her and she saw now why this incredible power bothered him.

            “I’m guessin’ dat in theory I could manipulate the flow of Time for _everythin’_ ,” he answered, half to himself, reasoning out a train of logic he’d travelled down more than once in the past few days. “But I ain’t tried it yet.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “I’ll admit it, Rogue.  I don’t like it.  It’s just… it’s weird.  Like it’s completely _wrong_.  Like messin’ wit’ somet’ing I can’t see and I don’t fully understand.  Don’t you feel it?”

            She did feel it.  She shivered and held herself tight, looking about her at this suddenly sterile world in which everything had just abruptly and without warning been switched off.

            “Yeah,” she answered uncertainly. “Like we’re the only things alive…”

            But there was something else to it, something compelling about the fact that it _was_ just the two of them.  A moment in time between them, just them, caught and captured forever.  That could go on and on.  A world of them.  Population: two.  Him and her.

            Just like Adam and Eve.

Rogue suppressed a shudder, one of both fear and wonder.  It scared her to think of what Essex would have been capable of had he retained control of Remy’s power.  Only winning a game of cosmic chance had prevented that future from coming to pass.  And who knew how long Irene had been cultivating this eventuality?  Who but her could possibly have seen the creature that Remy LeBeau would now become?

She couldn’t help but wonder what part she had left to play in her dead foster mother’s game.

            As it was, this feeling of weightless silence – of the depths of space itself – jarred her to the core.  It was too sterile, too perfect.  Too visceral and frightening.

            She held herself tight, and this time it wasn’t from the cold.

            “Ah get it now,” she muttered. “Ah get why Essex wanted t’ _be_ you.” She turned to him slowly. “Holy shit, Remy.  This _has_ to be what Irene was hopin’ to gain from all this. This _has_ to be what this was all about…”

            He frowned, and as he did so he slowly let go of his kinetic hold on the flow of time; and gentle though the transition was, it was impossible not to sense the switch; it assailed her.  The breeze against her skin once more, the sounds of the earth moving, the wailing of sirens, the whirr of helicopters, the shouts of the people, the scent of the fires, the flickering and the dancing of lights in the darkness.  She gasped as if fighting for life; as if she’d been drowning and suddenly broken water.  She’d sensed a lot of strange things in her lifetime, but that had to be the weirdest.

 

            “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “Tried t’ make it easier on you, but de first time is always kinda weird.”    There was concern on his face, but she hardly saw it.

            “ _Oh mah Gawd,_ ” she mumbled, her senses still coming to terms with the influx of new sensory data.

            “I know,” he nodded grimly. “Weird, huh?”

            She didn’t answer, looking up over his shoulder curiously.  There, in the distance, the choppers were still humming away busily over another hopeless battle.

            Rogue stepped away from Remy and walked over to the edge of the roof.  When she looked down, a convoy of dustcarts rumbled noisily past, piled high with the charred and twisted remnants of a dead Sentinel.

            She appreciated then just what his power could achieve, on more than one level.

            “How long can you do that for?” she quizzed him, still unable to quite get her head round it. “Stall time, Ah mean?”

            He stepped in beside her, followed her gaze as the trucks disappeared round the next block.

            “I dunno,” he replied honestly. “I’ve never tried it for longer den a few minutes.  Like I said, it don’t _feel_ right.”

            “But you _can_ rewind time, right?” she questioned. “On that kinda scale, Ah mean.”

            “ _Oui_.  But I ain’t tried much o’ dat either.”

            She pondered on this, bit her lip. 

            “This has to be it, Remy,” she spoke decidedly. “Irene told me more than once that it was your power she needed.” She closed her eyes briefly, trying to remember the exact words. “ _A prodigious power, Rogue._ That’s what she said to me.” She tutted to herself in frustration. “Damn!”

            “What?” he asked.

            “Ah can’t remember what she said… somethin’ about you, and Time…”

            His face went suddenly still.

            “What?” now it was her turn to ask it.  And he looked worried again.

            “She told me somet’ing too.  Somet’ing similar.  Somet’ing about remakin’ _myself_ inside Time… Inside de Timestream…”

            “ _Right_ ,” Rogue nodded thoughtfully. “ _That’s_ what she said.  _Remakin’_.  But what does that even mean?”

            He shrugged.

            “Damned if I know.”

            They shared a look, not knowing where to go with this line of enquiry, wondering if it was yet another dead end. 

And there were other things too yet to be resolved in that look – _feelings_ , emotions that were skimming just below the surface, that wanted _out_.

            She couldn’t help it.

            She reached out instinctively, tenderly, to touch the bruise on his face, her heart wrenching painfully; and when she finally opened her mouth, she realised that she was ready, finally ready, to pick up again where they had left off.

            As it was, neither would come to a conclusion.  They were interrupted by a psychic summons from Psylocke, done with such a dearth of her usual finesse that the noise was like a foghorn blaring in their ears.  Rogue winced as she heard it.

            _Both of you.  War room.  Now!_

            The message had come and gone in the space of a thought, so loud it left a momentary ringing in Rogue’s ears.  When she looked up at Remy again, his expression was closed once more.  Whatever shields he’d let down with her were now straight back up again.

            “Dis don’t sound good,” he gave voice to what they were both feeling.

            “We’d better go,” she muttered in return.

            They went to the war room, not saying a word to one another, consumed with a gnawing sense of dread.  But as they entered the room, as they stepped into the low, hushed murmur of the others gathered there, it was not what they had expected this revelation to be.

            The sea of people parted, and she saw first the face of Kate Pryde, sallow and haggard; then behind her, a crop of flaming red hair.

            Rogue stopped in her tracks, the entire world itself seeming to jar her to a premature halt.

            She stared.

 

            It was Rachel.

 

*


	18. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel returns to her original timeline, and the news she has to bring isn’t exactly what everyone wants to hear.

            “Rachel.”

            Rogue’s voice was soft yet surprised as she greeted the girl she had last seen what seemed an age ago.  Except this was no longer a girl, but a woman.  Her red hair had grown, her gaze was clearer, she held herself with an upright confidence Rogue barely recognised.  The sad, solitary child-woman had gone, replaced with the look of someone who bore herself with a calm, even cold, dignity.

            “Rogue,” she replied evenly.  There was none of the anger and rage Rogue had last been treated to; but neither was there any overt offer of the sympathy they had once shared.

            And somehow, despite the pain the loss of their friendship caused her, Rogue had to accept it, because the bond they’d built was one that had been built on a lie.

            “You came back,” she murmured, and Rachel nodded wordlessly, her lips a thin line.

            “Yeah, she’s back all right,” Logan jumped in gruffly from the sidelines. “What I want to know is how.  And _why_.”

            Rachel threw a small, begrudging smile in his direction.

            “Thought you’d be glad to see me, Logan,” she joked. “Considering the way things appear to be right now.”

            “Yeah, well.” Logan’s expression was cantankerous. “I was kinda hopin’ that when you came back it’d be in some fuckin’ blaze of glory.  Or at least with some good, solid answers.”

            Rachel’s smile turned bitter.

            “Well, I _do_ have some answers.  Not any you’d like to hear though, if I had to guess.”

            Logan scowled miserably.

            “Do tell.”

            Rogue glanced a little over her shoulder, noticing that Remy had retreated to the back of the room, right by the door.  She knew how he was feeling – guilty and uncomfortable.  Despite that same urge to reach out and take her hand in his own, to ease the anguish out of him, she held back with an effort.

            “Any answers would be good,” Betsy’s cold, clear accent broke through the momentary silence. “There’s been talk of the military bringing in the heavy artillery against us, and if that happens then frankly, we don’t stand a chance.”

            “Heavy artillery?” It was Kate, speaking for the first time in a hoarse voice.  She sank into the nearest chair and dropped her face into her palms. “ _Oh God_.”

            “What do they mean, ‘heavy artillery’?” Rachel asked, her expression harder than ever.  Logan shrugged.

            “Tanks, missiles, grenade launchers… best pray they don’t call in a Davy Crockett or two.” His grin was all teeth and completely forced.  Rachel stared at him.

            “What _happened_?” she broke out.

            Logan jabbed a thumb in Gambit’s direction.

            “ _He_ happened.”

            And Rogue couldn’t let it lie like that.

            “That ain’t fair, Logan, and you know it!” she interjected hotly, only for Logan to snort derisively.

            “Don’t gimme that.  The Cajun took a risk in dealin’ with Sinister, one he _knew_ could turn out bad.  Truth is, he played chicken with _all_ our lives and he lost.  Now we’re lucky he ain’t up there blowin’ the city to kingdom come.  Although the statics might just end up doin’ that for us anyways.”

            “Yah can’t blame Remy for Sinister’s decisions!” Rogue snapped back angrily, and Logan answered with just the barest thread of calm left, “He should _never’ve_ left Chicago to go and chase that sick fuck!  If I’d’a stopped him from goin’ _none_ of this woulda happened!  Now the shit’s hit the fan and there ain’t a thing I can do t’ stop it!”

            Rogue was about to step forward and protest when Remy spoke up behind her, soft, soothing.

            “Don’t, _chere_.  It’s okay.”

            And she rounded on him, saying angrily, “It’s _not_ okay!”

            But Logan was right on top of her, agreeing, “No, it’s not okay.  But what’s he gonna do about it, stripes?  He’s too chicken shit to even know where to begin.”

            Rogue could feel it – her anger blazing like it hadn’t since she’d been with the Brotherhood.  It was an impotent, cold, lonely anger.  The anger of a child who held no cards, nor had any leverage.  She chafed under it, feeling hurt that Remy wouldn’t come out and stand up for himself, that he wouldn’t give back to Logan as good as he got when he’d never failed to do so in the past.

            “The long and short of it is,” Forge interrupted with simple equanimity, forestalling any further argument with his uncompromising calm, “is that Sinister gained control of Gambit’s actions, and with his Omega level powers attempted to destroy both the Sentinels and the Hounds.  Rogue was able to stop him before he was able to complete his task.”

            “Would’ve been better if he had though,” St. John muttered from the sidelines. “Then the statics wouldn’t have anything left to fight us with.”

            Rachel glanced at him, shaking her head with a smile that was half sad and half sardonic.

            “It wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” she said. “The Sentinels can’t _be_ destroyed.”

            They all stared at her, wordless and disbelieving.

            “ _What_?” Logan finally asked, his voice a dead tone.

            “It’s true,” Rachel replied softly. “You kill one, more just keep coming.”

            “ _How_?” 

            His voice was cold, his jaw tense and his teeth gritted, and Rachel sighed, crossed her arms, looked at the floor.

            “Tanya told me,” she explained slowly, “when we were in the Timestream.  She followed me there.  She had this insane idea that we could go back into the past and prevent her dad from creating the Sentinels if she could convince him to _love_ her.” She paused, a momentary frown darkening her face at the memory, before continuing: “Anyway, I told her to leave me alone – not that she listened.  She wasn’t gonna leave me till I’d taught her how to use her powers.  So I taught her a few tricks, just to keep her off my back… and we got to talking a little, before we split.  She told me Bolivar developed this programme – Master Mold or something.  _Everything_ about the Sentinels is coded in there – the blueprints, the schematics, the codes and their prime directive.  Whatever the Sentinels do, wherever they _are…_ It’s all fed straight back into the company mainframe through Master Mold.  Trask hasn’t run the thing in _years_.  As long as the Sentinels are working fine and bringing in mutants, he lets them basically run themselves.”

            Logan’s eyebrow twitched.

            “So… we take down the mainframe, we take down de Sentinels,” he reasoned gruffly; but Rachel shook her head.

            “Master Mold is like a virus – it’s self-replicating.  You tear down one part of the mainframe, it moves to another.  You tear down the whole thing, it migrates through the internet.  You _can’t_ destroy it.”

            “Hm,” Forge sounded, stroking the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. “Ingenious.  But actually _building_ the Sentinels would require an almost limitless supply of raw materials… And if we could take away those building blocks…”

            “Sure,” Rachel said over the tailend of his unfinished sentence. “We _could_ do that.  But Trask has set-ups all over the country.  We’d need a huge number of resources and manpower over several states just to make a dent in his forces.  And I think we all know that we don’t have _that_.”

            Quiet.  Given the limited time they were fighting against, each and every one there knew their situation was now virtually hopeless.

            “But what are they _fighting_?” Kate suddenly burst out desperately, unable to bear their helpless silence any longer. “I mean – Gambit’s okay now, right?”

            There was an uneasy shuffling of feet.

            “They don’t know _who_ they’re fighting,” Dominic finally murmured, and Logan nodded.

            “No.  They don’t.  All they know is that Sentinels started exploding and Hounds started burning up.  Not to mention numerous other civilian casualties on the side, plus a few S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives and their state-of-the-art equipment.” He sneered. “All they know is that mutants are responsible, and that mutants haveta pay.”

            “Jesus,” Kate muttered into her hands and Logan looked grim.

            “You can call him, if you want.  Don’t think he’s listenin’ though.”

            Kate made no reply.  She looked up at Rachel standing beside her with sorrow in her eyes.

            “I’m sorry, Rachel,” she half-whispered. “I brought you back here to _this_.  And there’s nothing you can do to change it.”

            “You don’t know that,” Rachel replied softly, but Logan was immediately on her.

            “What does she mean – you can’t change it?” he demanded.

            “What she said.” Rachel’s expression was wry. “That I can’t change anything.  At least, I don’t think I can.”

            Everyone looked at one another.  After a heavy silence, Logan sat on the arm of the nearest chair, the lines on his face scored deeper than usual.

            “Explain,” he said; Rachel shrugged, sighed.

            “It’s pretty simple, really.  I can’t change anything in the Timestream.”

            “Why not?” Jubilee asked, and Rachel glanced at her askance.

            “Because my powers are psionic based.  It means I can travel through time psychically, but not physically.   I can’t be embodied outside of the here and now, and I can’t _affect_ anything outside of the here and now.”

            “But you took Kate back through the Timestream,” Rogue pointed out; Rachel’s smile turned wry.

            “I can send anyone else’s consciousness through the Timestream – if I keep in physical contact with them – by swapping their psyche with that of their past, future, or alternate self.  But I didn’t send Kate _back_.  I sent her sideways.  To another reality.” She paused, frowned. “The truth is, Rogue, I can’t control my powers, not in any sense that matters.  I can guide my own psyche through the Timestream, but I can’t guide anyone else’s, not with any accuracy.” Her expression narrowed. “You’ve absorbed my powers, Rogue.  You know what they’re like.  Do you remember?”

            Rogue cast her mind back hesitantly.  She had only channelled a slither of Rachel’s powers that day in the snow, at the Hound Pens.  In the brief window of time that those powers had been accessible to her, she had felt it – that she was an unwelcome interloper, that the strands of Time were untameable – impervious, even – to her desires.  She remembered, also, how small and insignificant she had seemed in its wake, a speck of sand buffeted by a monumental tidal wave.  Like water, the Timestream was liquid, malleable – but it also held the weight of untold millennia behind it, and it was stronger and more solid than any edifice yet built by man or Nature.  Rogue had been powerless to move the wall of that tide.

            “Ah remember,” she spoke at last.  It was the first time her and Rachel had ever spoken of her absorption, and she sensed that there was still more to be said.

            “I went into the Timestream,” Rachel continued reflectively. “I wanted to find out what had gone wrong.  It took me a while to realise that I sent Kate _across_ the Timestream, to another reality.  So I went there.  I saw how things _could_ have been here.  In this other reality, Kate saved Senator Kelly.  There was no Mutant Registration Act.  No massacre at the mansion.  No Sentinels and Hounds and death and killing.  So many of the people that died here are still alive there.  Mom, dad, Kurt, Warren, Bobby, Hank, Alison, Lorna, Alex…  I could go on and on.  Mutants are feared, but for the most part we’re _accepted_.  We can _live_.”

            Rogue heard it – the wistfulness in Rachel’s voice.  And she realised that, even though she couldn’t exist _physically_ in this timeline, it had nevertheless become a second home to her.  It had become a sanctuary, a safe haven.  It had become a place that Rachel had never really known in this world.

            “I wanted to stay there,” Rachel began again after a short pause. “I didn’t want to come back.  But then I remembered what you’d said to me Rogue.  To use my powers for a better tomorrow.  Not to leave everyone and everything here to rot.  I was responsible for the deaths of Storm and Colossus and Magnus and Franklin.  I had to do something to make up for the mistakes I made.  I had to try and make amends.”

            Her voice wavered and she looked away.

            “Dat weren’t your fault, _p’tit_ ,” Remy spoke quietly, and she glanced at him as though surprised.

            “Yes.  It was.  I came up with the idea.  It cost Kate the only life she knew.” She looked down at the woman still sitting, broken and haggard, in the chair beside her. “So I looked for her again, across the Timestream.  I came back to her, and I promised her that I’d try and make things _better_.  Even if I _can’t_.”

            The following silence was thick, and Kate broke it as if unwillingly, mumbling between her fingers, “I thought if I brought her here, you – the X-Men – could help.  I thought if we tried _together_ , just like the old times… …”

            She faltered off.  No one wanted to voice what each and every one was thinking – that the X-Men were gone, long dead, and that Kate’s hope had been a vain one.

            “But can’t you move _us_ through the Timestream?” Jubilee spilled out desperately, and Everett continued for her, saying, “Yeah, like, move our consciousnesses into some other timeline or something?”

            Rachel’s mouth went hard again.

            “I _could_.  But that would involve exchanging your consciousness with that of your counterpart.  And sorry, but I really don’t feel too comfortable with displanting someone from their own timeline to live in this one.  Not to mention which,” and she grimaced, “I’d have to keep in physical contact with you for it to work.  And I can’t do that for _anyone_ indefinitely, let alone a whole bunch of people.”

            Everett looked deflated.

            “So,” he muttered dejectedly. “That’s it then.  There _is_ no way out of this.”

            And the truth spoke for itself.

            “I’m afraid not,” Rachel returned morosely. “Sorry.”

            The silence that followed was cloying.  Rogue shook her head slowly.

            “Ah can’t believe it,” she murmured. “Irene was so sure you were important… That you had a purpose to fulfil…”

            “Stripes,” Logan interrupted her sternly. “Judging by the present situation, I ain’t too sure we can trust _anythin’_ Irene Adler told us.”

            “And Ah don’t think she would lie, Logan,” Rogue insisted quietly, and he grimaced.

            “Believe what you want, Rogue.  But one day you’re gonna haveta face the fact that that woman used you.  Don’t ask me what for, ‘cos I ain’t got a clue.  All I know is that she nearly got you killed, sent the Cajun into Sinister’s hands, and started off this whole mess in the first place.  Between that and this place going to shit, sorry if I don’t sound too enthusiastic about those goddamn diaries; or anythin’ she had t’ say about the future, for that matter.” He got up off the seat with an air of having had the last word. “Well, y’ said you had answers, kid, and you were right – ain’t anythin’ we’d care to hear.  Still,” and the smile he passed her was genuine, “it’s good to have you back, Rae.  You’re welcome to stay however long you want – guessin’ that won’t be long though.  Won’t blame you neither.”

            “Thanks, Logan,” the younger woman replied softly. “Think I’ll be staying for as long as Kate needs me.”

            Logan was already moving to the door.

            “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug, and left.

            It was obvious that there was nothing more to be said or discussed.  Everyone began to filter out slowly, leaving Rachel with a still motionless Kate; and when Rogue turned it was to find that Remy had already gone.  She wasn’t sure how long ago he had left; but when she went out into the corridor after the others he was nowhere to be seen.

            Her spirits sagged.  She didn’t know how difficult it had been for him to stand there, listening to everything that had just passed; but she had an idea.  Enough of an idea to know that he had slipped out when there was the least danger of attracting her attention and her pity.  She stood in the corridor, feeling both hurt and uncertain.  Obviously he was trying to give the impression that he didn’t want her comfort, even though she knew him well enough not to believe that was the case at all; and besides, she was feeling stubborn enough to push things with him, even if he didn’t like it.

            “Rogue?”

            She was surprised to hear Rachel’s voice behind her, and when she turned she saw the younger woman standing by the doorway, her expression still one of that quiet, self-contained confidence.

            “Rae,” Rogue greeted her hesitantly, expectantly.  The acknowledgement was enough.  Rachel stepped forward – no smiles, no hostility – just complete neutrality.

            “I wanted to apologise,” she began with sober honesty, “for the way we parted last year.  I left things in a bad way.  I’m sorry.”

            It was the last thing Rogue had been expecting.  For a split second she was speechless, grappling with long-buried feelings of guilt and shame; when she found her voice, it seemed to be barely there.

            “There ain’t no need to apologise, Rae.  Ah should’ve been honest about what Ah did to you.  For what it’s worth – Ah’m sorry Ah wasn’t.”

            Rachel’s smile was slight.

            “You did what you had to.  I understand that now.  If I had been in your position, I would’ve done the same.” She paused, the smile slipping from her lips. “I was angry with you for taking away my memories.  A part of me still is.  But they’re back now, for better or for worse.  And there’s nothing left to feel angry about now.”

            Rogue nodded mutely.  Grateful though she was for Rachel’s apology, she nevertheless felt awkward receiving it; and she sensed that Rachel felt the same about giving it.  After a short, uncomfortable silence, she decided to change the subject.

            “So… How’s Kate?”

            Rachel glanced over her shoulder.

            “Kinda hard to tell,” she murmured. “I mean, how would you feel if everyone you had – your parents, your husband, your children, your friends – all died on you?” She looked back at Rogue, her lips twisted with bitterness. “And _that’s_ what’s on my conscience, probably about as much as I was on yours.  Piotr’s death was my responsibility.”

            “Yah can’t keep blaming yourself for that, sugah,” Rogue rejoined softly; but Rachel gave a small laugh.

            “Maybe not.  But you and I both know it’s easier said than done.”

            They began to walk slowly down the corridor in the direction the others had taken.

            “So,” Rachel began with the cold sort of humour Rogue had seen so often in Remy.  “Never thought it possible, but it looks like things are worse here than when I left.  Is it true?” she asked, a strain of anxiety nevertheless penetrating her laugh. “Are they really thinking about dropping nukes?”

            “There’s been talk,” Rogue answered quietly. “But it could be just that.  Talk.  Things’d haveta be pretty desperate for the statics to resort to _that_.  They could take their own out, for one thing.”

            Rachel made a rude noise. “Get them scared enough and that won’t matter.” Then she paused, checking herself. “Sorry.  I’m not helping, am I.”

            Rogue smiled sympathetically.

            “Dontcha worry none, Rae.  Everyone here’s thinkin’ the same as you – they wouldn’t bat an eyelid to hear you say it.”

            Rachel made no reply, seemingly distracted by her own thoughts.  After a moment she halted and turned to face Rogue seriously.

            “I’m sorry, Rogue,” she began with genuine regret. “But I have to ask.  Gambit—”

            She stopped before she could even get the question out, struggling with the right words; but Rogue had an idea of what she wanted to say.

            “You wanna know if what Logan said about him was right,” she murmured, and Rachel looked at her expectantly.

            “Well?  Was he?”

            And Rogue looked aside with a frown.

            “It wasn’t Remy’s choice,” she explained defensively. “He never meant to hurt anybody.”

            “So it _was_ him,” Rachel breathed, and Rogue looked at her sharply.

            “No.  It was Sinister.” She sighed, looking aside, knowing it was useless to explain things, not least to Rachel. “Ah need t’ go find him,” she muttered to herself.

            “Good luck with that,” Rachel returned, pulling a face. “Judging by the quick exit he made, being found was probably the last thing he wanted.”

            “Maybe.” Rogue grimaced. “But if he thinks Ah’m gonna sit around mopin’ after him while he’s feelin’ sorry for himself, he can think again.”

            She began to walk again, and when she’d got to the end of the corridor she heard Rachel call out to her.

            “Rogue.”

            She stopped, turned.

            “What?”

            “You don’t need to justify his actions to me, you know.  If what he did was for you, he did it with the best of intentions.  I’ve seen enough of him through the Timestream to know that for sure.”

            And with that she’d disappeared back into the room.

            Rogue stood a moment, ruminating on the words.  When she finally turned the corner, there was no Remy in sight; and when she braved going topside later, his bike was nowhere to be seen.

 

*

 

            It was times like these that Remy LeBeau felt most alive.

            Alone, on a motorbike, with the wind in his hair and against his face; nothing but him against the elements, nothing to struggle against except the world itself.

            No sidelong stares of mistrust from the people he respected, or outright hostility from the ones he didn’t.

            No wounded smiles from the only one of them he truly cared about.

            Here it was just him, and he could deal with that.

            He could deal with the battle injuries he’d let himself sustain in atonement for all his misdeeds.  He could deal with being the outcast, with being the unwelcome outlaw in Logan’s tight-knit bunch.  He could even deal with being classed below Mystique and the Brotherhood in everyone’s eyes.

            But there was one thing he couldn’t deal with.

            And that was seeing _her_ hurt and confused because she wanted to berate him for all the hell he had put her through, because she wanted to stand up for him despite all that.  Because every kindness she showed him stung like a bitch when he thought about how he had slammed that knife into her and _wanted_ it.

            Remy ground the bike to a halt, his cheeks smarting from the wind.  It didn’t hurt nearly a fraction as much as what he needed it to, but he had to stop and here was as good a place as any.  He needed to collect himself before ended up driving off a cliff.

            He took in a laboured breath and looked around him.

            He was outside Central Park.

            There wasn’t much left of it that was worth looking at.

            Half of it had been destroyed; what was left had recently been set up as a makeshift triage centre for any battle casualties.

            The medics had gone home now.

            All that remained of their presence was the paraphernalia of their profession – empty wrappers for hypodermic needles, scraps of unused bandages, the odd discarded face mask.  He walked through it all, stopping now and then to inspect this and that – a crushed pair of spectacles, a trampled diary full of hastily scribbled appointments, a piece of metal plating from what he guessed was a Sentinel’s hindquarter.  When he saw the kid’s book bag he dropped to a crouch and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  He remembered going back to the mansion weeks after it had been destroyed.  He remembered seeing the detritus of the normal and the everyday lying around in the ruins just like this.

            And it hurt.  It hurt just as bad the second time round as it had the first.

            He turned back.  He got on his bike and drove.  Halfway on his journey to nowhere he made up his mind.

            He did a U-turn and headed to Graymalkin Lane.

           

            There was even less there than there had been before.

            He remembered there having been more to the ruins of the mansion; more scattered belongings, more bricks and mortar.  Almost everything had been stripped now.  He figured the homeless and the disenfranchised had pillaged the place long ago, trying to make what they could from the cast-offs left by a massacre.

            It had been years since he’d been here.  Years and years.  And it was hardly safe for him to be here, but he needed this.  He needed to come back.  He needed to be in this little space he’d once called home, even if it’d never been a home, even if he’d been here under false pretences.

            But there were some things that’d never been false, or a pretence.

            He’d stood right here in the ball room once, trying to get her to kiss him under the mistletoe.  He almost smiled at the memory of her in red silk, hair all done up in that fancy chignon like she’d wanted to impress him.  He’d fought back the urge to loosen it, to let her hair spill down over her shoulders in those unruly, messy waves he liked so much.

            _No need t’ impress me, chere.  I kinda like you de way you are_.

            He’d known, even then, that she loved him.  Loved him in a true, pure way. 

            Usually, once love got into the equation, it was time for him to start running a mile.  But this time he’d stayed.  He’d stayed because he’d wanted her love more than anything.  So he’d taken it, greedily, selfishly, knowing that he would never have to give a thing back.  Knowing that all his insinuation of physical intimacy had just been a way of hooking her, of manipulating her into falling for him, into _loving_ him.  It had fed him, sustained him.  He hadn’t liked to admit it then, but he saw it now as plain as day.  She had made him feel like something good, something worthwhile.  She had made him feel like a man.

            She still did.

            He paused, stared down at the remains of the burnished parquet floor, now grimy and scuffed with age and wear.

            He had this memory.  Essex’s memory.

            Row upon row of tiny babies in incubators, sleeping on the other side of a darkened glass window.  And _he stands there like a king surveying his subjects, Irene scribbling beside him onto a clipboard full of notes, and he asks her, “Well?  What do you see?”_

_And she carries right on writing, saying, “Well, subject number X-276 has been diagnosed with spina bifida… It’s possible that the condition is a symptom of their mutation, although we aren’t quite sure yet…”_

_“No,” he interrupts calmly. “I mean, what do you_ see _?  With this other sight you possess?  What do you see when you look beyond that window?  What does the future hold in store for my little army?”_

_She says nothing for a long moment._

_“How did you know?” she murmurs in a different tone of voice._

_“I did my homework,” he states flippantly._

_And she stares through the window with unseeing eyes and says,_

_“I see death,” and he feels a flair of anger, snaps, “Everything dies,” but her smile is sad, and she replies, “Yes.  And that is all I ever see.  Constant decay.  It chases us.  You cannot outrun it, Essex.”_

_He glares at her, realising she’s done her homework too._

_“I’ll find a way,” he hisses, and she clicks her pen, slips her clipboard under her arm and says with a sigh, “No.  You won’t.”_

_A side door opens, and in comes a nurse with a little baby in her arms.  The baby has a white streak in its soft tufts of cinnamon coloured hair._

_Irene falls quiet and so does he.  He watches Irene watch the nurse take the girl into the room and place her back into the incubator._

_“This one is different?” he asks her in a curious tone, and she half turns to him, her expression pensive as she answers._

_“No.  She will die too.  One day.”_

_“But you_ see _something in her,” he persists in that same shrewd, driving tone; and he knows he’s right when he sees the way her mouth hardens._

_“Yes.  I see something.  In one hand she holds death.  In the other, life.  Which one she chooses though is, I fear, up to you.”_

_She lifts up her chin, draws herself straighter, looks at him._

_“Will that be all, Doctor Milbury?” she asks with nonchalant formality.  He says nothing.  He waves his hand.  Irene leaves; she pauses at the door, looks at the guard there with an oddly penetrating look.  When she finally moves out the door, the guard escorts her, touching her back in a brief but familiar gesture.  The door slides shut behind them.  It’s a conundrum he doesn’t have time to ponder on.  He turns back to the window and watches the nurse finish putting the baby girl back to bed.  If he has the power to choose a path for her, he knows which one he will take._

_He will give her what is of most use to him._

_He will give her the power of death._

            Remy held in a painful breath, hearing gunshots from somewhere far away.  If there were any screams afterward they were too quiet to hear.

            What Essex had never realised was that, despite his best efforts, Rogue had never been about _death,_ not even when she’d been impelled to inflict it on Cody Robbins.  Time and again she had made the decision to be something better, something nobler.  She had chosen life over death every time.  Even when she’d acted out in anger and in violence, it had been for _life_.

            And Remy _knew_ , unequivocally, that Rogue would fight tooth and nail to make all this killing go away.  And what scared him even more was that she might even find a way.

            It scared him because he understood now that it was exactly the trajectory Irene had always intended to set her on.

            He shivered, drawing the collar of his coat closer round his neck, fighting with the selfish desire to take her away with him and keep her to himself, away from all this death and misery.  In the darkness she was his only light; and he had guarded that light jealously, like a beggar huddling round his only source of warmth.

            She was his; and yet she belonged to the world.  Irene had made sure of that.

            He turned; and as he did so clouds cleared overhead, and something glinted at his feet in the moonlight.

            A flash of red in the darkness; and he bent over, reached out and touched it.

            It was small, hard, and he picked it up between thumb and forefinger, held it up to the moonlight.

            It was a small, stud earring in the shape of a star.  He stared at it absently, rolled it between his fingers.  Only when he heard the wail of sirens drawing in from the distance did he stand, slip it in his pocket, and leave.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	19. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue and Remy continue their road to reconciliation, whilst Rachel figures out a way to use her powers to fix the timeline.

            Two a.m. and she couldn’t sleep.

            It was hard to sleep when the world above was falling to pieces and you could hear it crumbling all around you.

            The past week had been hell on earth for her, and she’d just about managed to convince Logan and Forge that bed rest in the med bay was the last thing she needed.  Helping the others topside was taking things a step too far – Logan had made that clear enough to her – so she’d spent most of her time helping kit out her comrades, or playing nurse and tending the wounds of the injured.  It wasn’t to her taste, but it was better than lying in bed supposedly recovering.

            It wasn’t quite enough to take the edge off her restless sense of impotence though.

            Rogue kicked aside the duvet and slid out of bed.  When she left her room, she was surprised that no one else was about.

            Was it really possible to sleep with all _this_ going on?

            She wandered into the lounge area, flipped on the light switch.  She squinted in its artificial glow, seeing her reflection caught in the mirror on the opposite wall.  She stood a moment, gazing at herself, as the door swung shut slowly behind her.  It was a while since she’d last looked at herself.  What she saw in the dirty glass was the face of a woman who was tired and drawn.  It was the face of the woman who had first woken up to a dead world nine long years ago.

            Rogue stepped up to the mirror and stared at herself as if issuing a challenge. 

            The past few days she’d been wandering round her own mind, trying to catch a hold of Irene, trying to get some idea of what she was supposed to do next.  But, as always, Irene had chosen to hide herself in her room and wasn’t coming out.  Gambit’s psyche hadn’t been much help either, and the other psyches she’d absorbed appeared to have gone back to sleep.  She hadn’t a clue what any of it meant, but she guessed from Irene’s staunch silence that there was nothing _to_ be said; that her only option was to wait.

            And Rogue didn’t like that.  She didn’t like it at all.

            She felt a twinge in her heart and absently unbuttoned the top of her shirt, revealing the jagged scar above her left breast, the scar that Remy had left her.  She thumbed it lightly, watching her reflection mimic the action.  It had healed nicely; quickly enough to impress even Forge’s stolid sensibilities.  It was strange, but she felt… _comfortable_ with it.  Like she’d had it before.  Like it wasn’t as alien to her body as it seemed.

            She sighed and buttoned up her shirt again.

            There was a tremor from way up above and Rogue paused, waited for it to be over.

            She counted a full ten seconds before it was done.

            She wondered how many casualties there had been this time.

 

            The other day they’d been broken into by a panicked band of civs.  They’d pretty much trashed half the place looking for arms and resources; the water system Forge had so carefully set up was in a mess, and they were still having trouble with it.  One of the generators had been damaged in the skirmish, and hadn’t entirely been fixed yet.  But, despite all this, Rogue didn’t feel she could blame them, even though they had known Logan’s hideout was already occupied.  When your only means of shelter has been destroyed and there’s a Sentinel standing between you and certain death, you’ll look for sanctuary wherever you can find it.  Isn’t that what life was about?  Survival?

            Logan’s party and the Brotherhood… they had weapons.  Supplies.  A roof over their head.  It was all a magnet to the have-nots.  Start a war and what do you get?  Looting and bloodshed over the most basic of resources.

            Luckily, Betsy had managed to psychically send them on their way and then, once they were topside, convince them that their hideout had never existed.  Everyone knew, however, that it wouldn’t be long before they were sniffed out by some other band of survivors, and that things would get worse before they got better.

            And yet Rogue longed to be topside.  Being cooped up down here was on the verge of turning her into a full-blown claustrophobic.

            Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of the door gently creaking open.  When she looked up into the mirror again, she saw Remy poke his head round the doorway.  He saw her there, hesitated, backed away a little.  He didn’t go though and she swivelled round, said, “Hey.”

            The corner of his mouth twitched in a barely there smile.

            “Hey.”  He still didn’t move and after a moment he added, “Saw de light on under de door.  Was wonderin’ who it could be at dis time o’ de night…”

            “Yeah, well…” She shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

            There was another tremor, one they both felt.  He waited it out before nodding.

            “Me neither.”

            There was a lengthy silence. 

            It was the first time they’d been alone in one another’s company since that night on the rooftop, and whilst there was still plenty that needed to be said between them, so far circumstances had forced them to put their personal feelings to one side.  Since the break-in, she’d spent most of her time trying to help patch up the water system and the generator; and Remy had spent most of his above ground, joining Logan and Raven in whatever battle strategies they had planned for the day.  As far as they were concerned, it was the only thing he was good for, and he took it only because it was what he owed them and everyone else in their band.

            By the time he’d get back they would both be so exhausted that talking would be the last thing on their minds.  For Rogue, most days it would be working on the generator with Kate and Forge with only small breaks in between, and once the sun had gone down she would stumble, caked with sweat and grime, back to her room.  Sometimes she’d even forego a shower and slump onto her bed, falling asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.  Then it was time to wake up at 6 a.m. and the whole thing would start again.

            Some days, she hadn’t even seen him.

            But now here he was, and all the feelings she had neglected to examine in the chaos since their last meeting suddenly surged, pushing at her, making her heart twist.   When he moved into the room and shut the door softly behind him it was a torture of a different kind, the knowledge of an imminent resolution to something so painful she could hardly bear to touch it.

            Nevertheless, he stood there for what seemed an age, his hand on the door handle as if he expected her to ask him to leave.

            She didn’t.

            “You got dat generator fixed yet?” he asked her quietly, more from a need to _say something_ than any interest in the answer.  She gave it anyway.

            “Not yet.  Though Forge seems pretty sure it should be done by tomorrow.”

            He nodded.  His eyes were on hers, so dark, so intense, that she couldn’t help but look aside, feeling the force of his glance sear right down to the pit of her stomach.

            “And up topside…?” she asked, trailing off; his reply was a laugh, low and bitter.

            “Don’t ask me ‘bout dat, _chere_.  Dat shit’s off limits, ‘least till de mornin’.  I get up, I go out, I face it.  I come home, I leave it on de doorstep.  Otherwise I go crazy.”

            His expression was strained, and even if his words had told her enough, his countenance told her even more.

            “That bad, huh?” she murmured, and he sniffed nonchalantly.

            “Yah.” He paused, looked at her again. “Was goin’ up t’ de rooftop for a smoke.  Guess it’ll haveta wait.”

            “Ah don’t wanna keep yah…” she assured him hurriedly, but he shook his head.

            “ _Non_.  Would rather be here.  Wit’ you.” His smile was faint. “Unless you’d rather I wasn’t…”

            The gaze she fixed him with was earnest.

            “No.  Ah don’t want’cha t’ go.” She thought about it a moment. “Ah could join you up on the roof, y’know…”

            “No.” His expression was strained again. “You don’t need to see what’s up there.  I’m fine down here.”

            He moved then, pushing himself away from the door and moving towards her.  He stopped a few steps away, hovering there, painfully close yet horribly far.  She sensed that he wanted to hold her, that he wanted to connect physically with her again, that that had been his intention in coming to her; but that he had reined himself in at the last split second, pulled back on those desires, however unwillingly.  It was confusing and it hurt, but a part of her understood that he was letting her lead the way in this, that he wanted to earn back her confidence and trust, not impose it on her.  And she appreciated that.  She appreciated the fact that he cared enough about her feelings to put them before his own.

            She’d seen, after all, the way he’d caught her eye during the few times they’d crossed paths the past couple of days.  The warmth under that glaze of tiredness.  The longing under the sting of every battle wound he wore.  He could mask a lot of things, but he couldn’t quite mask _that_ ; he couldn’t quite hide from that connection they shared, however tenuous and fragile it might be sometimes.

            It wasn’t now.

            That thin, tacky line that Rachel had once said drew them to one another – she felt its pull now, deeper and more insistent than she’d felt it in a long time.  All the sorrow and the rage she had felt at his betrayal now served to sharpen its effect.  She’d hurt so much precisely because he’d betrayed the depth of that connection; but he’d never _wanted_ to; and everything he had done, however rash and impetuous, had been for its sake.  It had been for _their_ sake.  For a life free of Essex.  She understood that now.

            His left arm was hanging stiffly at his side, and she noticed, for the first time, the bandage wrapped awkwardly round his wrist.

            “Yah patched that up yahself?” she asked him curiously, nodding to his arm; and he lifted it, looked at it, smiled wryly at her.

            “You can tell?” he quipped, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

            “That bandage ain’t gonna do any good fixed up like that…”

            “Yeah, well, ain’t no one round here willin’ t’ do it for me.  Ain’t no fun doin’ dis crap up one-handed.  Only t’ing you get any help from is your teeth.”

            He grinned; but she tutted softly and took his hand lightly, taking care not to jar his wound.

            “Here.  Let me,” she murmured, and he made no protest, letting her unwind the wrappings quickly, carefully, with the practiced ease of experience.  For a minute they were both silent; and whilst she was focused on removing the bandages, she could still feel his eyes on her, their warmth brushing the side of her cheek, the curve of her lips, the dip of her chin.

            Somehow it made her heart beat faster than every physical moment of intimacy they’d ever shared.

            “How long’ve you had this?” she asked him in a low voice, trying to be clinical.  There was dried blood on the bandage, enough for her to see that the wound had been pretty bad when fresh.  He shrugged.

            “A coupla days.”

            She was about to scold him for not asking her to sort it out for him before when she realised it was pointless.  Patching each other up had always been a marker of intimacy between them in the past, and the times they’d both literally and figuratively ended up licking each other’s wounds made her unable to prevent a blush from suffusing her cheeks.  So she busied herself with the task at hand; and when he was free of the bandage she checked the injury carefully. 

            It was a deep gash, all the way up his forearm; and whilst it looked like it had been pretty nasty, it’d healed up enough for her to know he’d got over the worst of it.

            “Yah need to change this bandage,” she told him flatly; and he said nothing but smiled, a silent _yes, mom_ in there somewhere.

            She began to dress the wound again silently, a smile twitching over her own lips.

            “Don’tcha think Logan’s been drivin’ you too hard?” she couldn’t help asking after a moment.  It was a question he hadn’t been expecting.

            “I think it’s de least I deserve, _chere_.”

            She hit him a look then, eyebrow raised, disbelieving.

            “What you did wasn’t your fault,” she told him seriously, but he shook his head stoically.

            “Maybe not entirely.  But at least some of it was.  And dat’s what counts round here, wit’ your folk.” He paused, wincing slightly as she pulled a little too tight on the bandage; she checked herself, loosened it a little, and he relaxed. “Truth is, Rogue,” he finished with a tone of finality, “I ain’t welcome here.  And it’s fuckin’ hard to deal wit’.”

            She’d seen it.  In the way he stayed in the corner of every group meeting, slunk away from every mealtime to go eat by himself.  He did what was expected of him defending the place and protecting the others.  He was there for each and every one of them during the bad; but never for the good – what little was left of it anyway.

            It hurt like hell to realise it.

            “Ah don’t think that, Remy,” she reassured him, and that smile flickered across his lips again.

            “I know you don’t, Rogue,” he rejoined gently. “It’s bad enough, knowing what I’ve done, knowin’ what I _tried_ to do to you.  But bein’ wit’ you, _chere_ , and knowin’ dat everyone was watchin’ us, resentin’ me, hatin’ me for havin’ your love after everyt’ing I’ve done… I don’t think I could take dat…”

            She bit her lip.  She’d almost finished with the bandages, and her eyes burned as she stared at them, swallowing bitterly on the implication behind his words.

            “Ah don’t care what they think,” she muttered.

            “ _I_ care,” he said, and she knew what an admission it was for him to make, when he so greatly prized the illusion that he _didn’t_ care. “And dat’s all dis is.  Me, tryin’ t’ figure all dis shit out.”

            “To prove yourself,” she half stated, half questioned, and he nodded.

            “If dat’s what it takes.”

            She’d finished; the bandage was now bound, snug and secure, around his arm.

            “You don’t need t’ prove yourself to me,” she promised him softly. “Not anymore.”

            She gave him back his arm, but he didn’t take it.  Instead he reached out, cupped her cheek, his touch tender yet assured.  Her eyes flickered to his involuntarily and she saw what he had been trying to hide from her – that need, held back only by the barest veneer of restraint.

            “Don’t I?” he asked with such gravitas that it almost took her breath away.  And it was useless for her to fight it.  She didn’t even give it a second thought.  She moved forward, as close inside his space as she dared, curled her fingers into his shirt.  After all the distance that time and happenstance had put between them, after all the death and the horror that had chased them, the warmth of his body beneath her fingers was like the texture of life itself.

            And somehow… it quietened the angry voices that had haunted her.  It soothed the pain in her soul.

            “You hurt me bad, Cajun,” she murmured softly, staring at his chest because she couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. “There were times Ah thought it woulda been kinder if you’d’a killed me.”

            She heard him pull in a painful breath; and just as she knew he was about to speak she forestalled him, adding quickly: “But Ah understand now why you did what you did.  And like it or not, it all served a _purpose_.  Irene made that clear.  Without Sage’s psyche, or Leech’s, Ah would never have been able to stop you as Sinister.  So Ah have to accept all that bad shit for what it is.  But,” and this time she _did_ look up at him, “Ah sure wish you’d _told_ me, Remy.”

            The look on his face told her just how much he had longed to do exactly that.

            “I woulda told you everyt’ing,” he insisted quietly, “just as long as I coulda been sure dat you wouldn’t have tried to stop me.” He shook his head, took in a slow, quivering breath, started again. “I was afraid, _chere_.  I was afraid you’d convince me there was another way.  I dunno how de hell you do it, but you do.  You make me second guess myself, make me question every bad decision I ever made.  And anyway,” he added helplessly, “I couldn’t afford to get distracted from de _plan_.  When you play de con…”

            “You live and breathe the con,” she finished, nodding, breaking eye contact. “Ah know.  Still woulda been nice to be in on it though.”

            He made no reply, but his thumb brushed her cheek almost unconsciously, and she couldn’t help it – her eyes met his again like he’d summonded them.

            “Yeah,” he spoke after a moment, the corner of his mouth dimpling. “I guess it _would’ve_ been nice t’ have you in on it, if I’d known you weren’t gonna go and find a better way first.  But fuck it.  I’ve givin’ up on regrettin’ de fuckin’ shitstorm I created, for de simple reason dat you’re standin’ here in front of me, livin’ and breathin’ and lookin’ at me dat way dat you do.  I can bear any burden for _dat_ , Anna.  I can bear it ‘cos Essex is dead and we can choose whether we want to be together or not now, and dat is fuckin’ good enough for me.”

            He hovered there, waiting, she sensed, for her to make that choice; and her stomach twisted at the realisation.  It all seemed too much, too soon; and for a split second all the pain and horror she’d felt in Sinister’s lab flooded her, making her drop her hands from him and hesitate.

            Something flickered over his face – restrained disappointment – and he took a step back, hitched a self-deprecating smile and said: “T’ink I’ll go for dat smoke now…”

            He spun quickly and went for the door, but when he got to it he paused.

            For a long moment he was quiet, his body half-turned towards the doorway, his eyes on the floor between them.  Like he was thinking, like he was considering something… like he was waiting.

            When he finally turned his back on her something inside her leapt forward, and she didn’t even know she’d spoken his name before it was out of her mouth and right there in front of them.

            “Remy.”

            As soon as it was out she caught a breath as if to grasp it back, unable to move, uncertain, afraid of what she had invited in calling out to him – frightened, more than anything, of what it meant for her to have called him back.

            He looked over his shoulder.

            His eyes were fixed on her face, dark, intent, serious, patient, and she thought that somehow he recognised it, that he had caught and maybe shared her fear…

            And he seemed to make up his mind.

            He turned and walked back to her… stopped just inside her space and took her by the upper arms, held her a moment, his gaze assessing, questioning almost.

            She parted her lips to speak, acutely aware of the shallow breath that passed between them – nothing came out.

            Did he misread her?

            He dipped his head then, paused within an inch of her, waiting; she blinked, she breathed, her lips moving slightly without conscious effort, his name a silent _something_ on her tongue, and that was when he closed the space between them, his lips coming up against hers, torturously sensuous and unhurried… And she closed her eyes, her breathing quick and light and involuntary against the gentle pressure of his kisses, one after another after another, trying not to take this too fast, too soon…

            He pulled away, just by a hair’s breadth; and an involuntary moan escaped her, a whimper for something more, for a closeness she now realised she had _longed_ for…

            There was barely a pause before he responded, first his lips then his mouth recapturing hers, and somehow she was kissing him back, her hands coming up over his chest and his shoulders and his neck, all gentleness, all uncertainty disappeared as they both abandoned all the doubt, all the mistrust, all the suffering that had drawn them apart for those long, aching months… And she couldn’t help touching him, touching him as if to do so would somehow bridge the gap that time and hurt had forced upon them, an exercise in reconnection of the most intimate kind.

            And suddenly, they had begun.

            They had begun to repair _everything_ ; and she felt that single frayed and broken tether that held them so tenuously together suddenly strengthen, tighten, curl round their hearts and put forth new shoots.

            Time lengthened, dilated; and for a lingering moment she thought he had stopped it, just as he had done that night on the rooftop.  But as soon as that sense of timelessness had begun it ended – she buried her head in his shoulder, and for a moment it was enough, it was enough to be standing there in this shared moment of sweet catharsis, a man and a woman together in a world which might as well have stopped.

            And afraid though she was to spoil this perfect silence, she was more afraid of leaving her feelings unsaid, however tentative or unsure they might be; so she raised her head slightly, whispered softly: “Yah… Yah don’t haveta sleep on the couch tonight, Remy…  Ah know maybe it’s too soon… But maybe it isn’t… And Ah don’t want t’ second guess any more.   You can spend the night with me, sugah… If’n yah want to…”

            He didn’t say anything, but he drew back slightly, gazing at her with eyes that seemed to smoulder; and just when they had _got_ somewhere, there was another tremor from up above ground, this time so strong that dust began to shake from the walls.  They looked up, then back at one another.  Before long the quake had petered out, leaving them with the sure sense that yet another round of needless deaths had occurred.  And the expression on his face was so pained that she couldn’t help it.  It was hell not to try and comfort him.

            “It’s okay, sugah,” she reassured him softly. “We’ll find a way to make this better.  Ah promise.”

            The smile he passed her was helpless but genuine.

            “And I’ll believe you, _chere_ ,” he murmured back, “but only ‘cos it’s you who’s tellin’ me so.”

            He smiled, she smiled; and just as they were both about to kiss again, a knock sounded on the door.  They shared another look; a look with far too much longing to be ignored.

            And that was when Rachel walked right on in.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            Rachel had sat in front of the grate and watched the flames lick the old, blackened cage of iron from behind the crook of her elbow.

            Months and years had passed, but there was still something comforting in sitting here in front of a fire, in nestling in the protective cradle of its warmth.

            It was one of the few things that still gave her a sense of security, of being _home_.

            She’d never _really_ known what home was like since the massacre at the mansion, but the closest she had come to it had been in this other timeline, this place where Senator Kelly had never been killed, and Sentinels and Hounds had never existed.  And whilst she could never physically be embodied in that place, it had been enough.  She had been content to bask in a world where a soul could walk down a street and not expect to be molested in some way; where people smiled and laughed and the X-Men – nothing more than a long-lost memory where she came from – were together.  Alive.

            _Tanya’s giving her a look._

_They’ve been at a stalemate for months now, ever since Rachel first discovered that shaking her off is like shaking off a flea consumed with bloodlust._

_She sits in the shadow of a building as Tanya comes up beside her with a sneer on her face, because she’s watching Scott Summers and Jean Grey walk hand in hand down the promenade; and no one can see her or Tanya because they’re just thought-forms here, but she’s okay with it, this is what makes her happy._

_“You_ still _here?” Tanya scoffs in that same, scornful tone, and there’s a part of Rachel that wishes she’d never helped Tanya to gain control of her time-twisting powers, even if it was only to get her off her back.  Because she_ still _won’t leave.  She still doesn’t believe Rachel’s taught her all there is to know, and she can’t stand it, it drives her mad to know that she’s the weaker._

_Rachel can sense it all the time._

_Tanya’s admiration and hatred, burning her in equal measure._

_“You can go, if you want,” she tells her quietly. “I’m staying.”_

_“You’re just wasting your time here,” Tanya tells her coldly. “You can’t_ change _anything here.  You should be working on figuring out_ why _we can’t change anything.”_

 _“Well why don’t_ you _?” she snaps back at her distractedly._

_Jean and Scott have rounded a corner and are now out of sight._

_“Because I can’t do it alone,” Tanya replies in that same contemptuous tone._

_“You_ can _,” Rachel replies through gritted teeth. “You just don’t_ want _to, not really.  You’ve never really_ wanted _to understand these powers that we share.  They’re just a means to an end for you.  And you’ll never really learn anything until you accept what you are.”_

_She stands, intent on following her mother and father; but Tanya rises too, grasps her arm hard._

_“Don’t you want it, Rachel?” she asks ravenously, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you want to make our world like_ this _one?  Our powers_ are _a means to an end, if only we figured out how to use them properly, but I’m the only one who can see it.  Why should we deny ourselves the lives we should’ve had?  Why should we deny everyone we know and love happiness?”_

Rachel sighed.

            She hadn’t liked to admit it at the time, but Tanya had always had a point.  Only part of her reluctance to capitulate to the girl’s demands had been down to moral rectitude.  Sure, she had been wary of tearing the sacred tapestry of Time by experimenting with her powers, but at the same time, she had been afraid of breaking the bubble that enveloped her in this world.  To travel through the Timestream, bodiless and untrammelled, had left her free of all responsibility – a stranger in a strange land with no ties, no family, nothing left owing.  In her astral form no one could hurt her.  She was untouched and untouchable.  She was safe.  And a part of her clung to that like a child to its mother.  She had feared letting go of it.

            “You’re still here,” Kate Pryde said unexpectedly behind her.  Rachel didn’t move.  She merely hummed her agreement.

            There was a silence and she heard Kate sigh into it.  A moment later and her friend had sat down on the floor, cross-legged, next to her.

            “What are you thinking about?” she asked lightly.

            Rachel considered her answer.  The truth was, she was thinking about so much it was easier just to say she was thinking about nothing.

            “Nothing,” she said.

            “Pffft.” It came out as something between a raspberry and a snort. “Coulda fooled me.  Besides, _I’m_ the one who’s supposed to be brooding, not you.”

            “I’m not brooding.”

            “Yes you are.  I could even have a stab at figuring out what you’re brooding about.  Been there often enough myself.”

            “Please, Kate.  Don’t remind me how much I fucked up your life.” She paused, muttering as an afterthought, “Or how much I can’t make things better, for you or for any of us.”

            Kate passed another sigh and reached out with a comradely hand, touching her gently on the shoulder.

 

            “Listen,” she spoke seriously, “don’t beat yourself up about this.  It is what it is.  You can’t change a thing.  The best thing you can do right now is go back into the Timestream and go somewhere _safe_.  Anywhere that isn’t _here_.”

            The tail end of her speech was cut off by another tremor from the city up above.  Nukes or not, it was enough to make them both freeze involuntarily.  They should’ve been used to it by now.  It wasn’t really the missile attacks that scared them – it was the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to follow them that was the worst thing about it.  Would Sentinels be behind?  Or another static raid?  Or would this bunker just give out and crumble all around them?

            It was more than a minute before the quake petered out.  Rachel felt Kate’s eyes on her, but she still didn’t move.  There was something she had to figure out.

            “Rae,” Kate probed, waiting for a reaction, a reply, _some_ sort of retort to what she had said before.

            “I’m staying,” Rachel insisted, still staring at the flames. “D’you think I could run out on everyone here, now?  That’d be a slap in the fucking face, wouldn’t it.”

            Kate didn’t push it.  She knew enough of Rachel’s moods to figure that talking about it would be pointless.  Instead she gave another sigh, dropped her hand and stood.  Rachel heard her pottering in the background, cleaning up the mess left over from their spartan dinner.  She listened to the sound of it, to the domestic rhythm of plates and cutlery clanking against one another in a tuneless song that should have felt something like home to her.

            It made her heart ache.

            How often had she heard this sound back in the internment camp, feeling so simple and helpless whilst Kate bustled through her well-worn days, seeming more like a mother than a friend?  She had filled the void that Rogue’s betrayal had left, becoming a someone and a some _thing_ to cling to, to act as her rock, her anchor.

            It was Kate who had brought her back, who she had heard calling her through the Timestream. 

Kate Pryde.  The best friend she’d never had.

            It was probably being silly and sentimental, but Rachel felt she owed this woman something, this woman who had been cast adrift by Rachel’s own actions, who had lost her husband – the only person she had left – because of what Rachel had done.

            She’d only come back for Kate.

            She’d only come back because of the guilt.

            She would have preferred to stay in the Timestream, and true – it was impossible for her to make a _real_ life in this other timeline; but even if she _was_ a ghost there, she was safe.  The people there laughed more.  They were happier.  There were no Sentinels, no Hounds, no Friends of Humanity.  It wasn’t a perfect place.  Nowhere could be that.  But it was better than here, even though her mom was dead in this other place too, and Rachel herself had never been born. It was somehow better that way.  She didn’t have to see herself stumbling along in this other place where everything was a clean slate.

            But Kate had called her back.

            And Kate didn’t deserve this meaningless life that Rachel had bestowed on her.

            Rachel _wanted_ to make amends.  She _wanted_ to make things better.

            As things stood, she wasn’t sure that she could fix all the mistakes she had made, but her time away and the fact that she had got a better handle on her time-twisting powers meant that she knew she could give it a try. 

            At least, she wanted to try for everyone that she’d been unable to save, even if she wasn’t sure _how_.

            Her thoughts went involuntarily to Franklin and she gave a sharp exhale of breath on the pain of it, dipped her head between her knees.

            _Franklin_.

            Franklin and his useless death.

            She’d thought about ways of changing the past just to bring him back – even for just a few moments where they could talk things over and figure this out.

            Hell, just for an embrace, or a kiss.

            Just to remember what it was like to feel safe and secure and _loved_ again.

            If there was just a way to go back as a _physical_ entity, if there was only a way to _boost_ her powers.

            She’d tried talking to Kate about it, but it had been too raw for both them.  Naturally things had got round to Piotr and they’d both ended up as a blubbering mess.  She wasn’t ready to bring _that_ up again, much as she knew she needed to talk about it.  Much as she needed to figure out what it meant to lose someone that you were _in love with_.

            And _that_ thought seemed to trigger a whole train of other thoughts – an image of Rogue, by the lakeside, saying to her:

            _Ah know Ah want t’ be with him.  Always._  

            Rachel stared up at the fire again, at the flickering flames popping and crackling in the grate.

            It wasn’t the words that suddenly struck her.

            It was the face of the person who’d once said them to her.

            _Rogue_.

            She blinked as if someone had slapped her round the face and dunked her head in a barrel of ice cold water for good measure.

            “Holy fucking _shit_ ,” she hissed.  A split second later and she had already scrambled to her feet and was heading for the door.

            “Rachel, what—?” Kate began behind her, but she was already halfway out into the corridor.

            “I have an idea!” she threw back over her shoulder, before shutting the door on her bewildered friend.

                       

            She’d cast out her psychic tendrils as she’d hurried out of Kate’s room, finding Rogue’s familiar butterfly warmth in the lounge.  But by the time she’d got there, of course, she could sense that familiar old film of static inside the room, and she knew that Gambit was in there too.

            She paused outside the door, hesitating.

            Both their guards were completely down, even Gambit’s.  She didn’t have to delve deep to know that both their feelings were running high.  She’d read them often enough for the taste of their psyches to be familiar.  But it was a depth of emotion tempered by restraint.  And whilst on some level she sympathised with what they were going through, it wasn’t enough to make her turn back now.  She was, after all, doing exactly what Rogue had told her to do.  Fight, for a better tomorrow.  So she lifted her fist and knocked softly on the door.  She didn’t wait for admittance.  She opened the door herself.

            They were standing close together, their arms about one another in an intimate embrace that they only reluctantly drew apart from as soon as she entered.  And whilst she had been prepared for Gambit’s look of veiled hostility, she had been less prepared to see the tentative, barely-there look of welcome that crossed Rogue’s face as she entered.

            There were no greetings, and Rachel was thankful for that.  She didn’t bother with apologies either.  Instead she stepped inside the room and shut the door gently behind her.

            “Can we talk?” she asked Rogue, when neither of the two said anything.  Again, it didn’t surprise her when they shared a look.  The look was brief, and truth be told, she wasn’t exactly sure what had been exchanged in that glance.

            “Sure,” Rogue answered after a moment, low and soft, and Rachel walked further into the room.  Gambit, true to form, didn’t make a move.  Rachel ignored him.  She didn’t really care if he heard what she had to say or not.  Rogue knew her own mind.  That was enough.

            “I need your help,” she began, addressing herself to Rogue only. “I have a plan, and I don’t know if I can make it work – but I might stand half a chance, if you help me out.”

            She paused, and saw Rogue’s eyes widen.  She couldn’t see Gambit at all, but she felt him, and what she felt was his emotions, narrowing and sharpening to a pinpoint.

            “Ah assume you’re talkin’ about what’s goin’ on topside,” Rogue commented after a moment; Gambit said nothing.  Rachel nodded.

            “Yes.”

            “So what d’you have in mind?” Rogue asked; and Rachel was thankful, at least, that Rogue was willing to hear her out.

            “Simple,” she replied, with just a streak of defiance. “I’m thinking of undoing it all.”

            Rogue stared.  She had expected Gambit to explode into mocking laughter, but again, he said nothing.  When Rogue finally deigned to speak, there was a thread of humour to her voice.

            “Sounds anythin’ but simple to me, sugah.  Especially when you can’t even _change_ anythin’, Rae.  Not unless you psionically move someone else through the Timestream and swap their consciousness with their past self…”

            “And that’s why I need your help,” Rachel broke in again, silencing her once more.  Rogue’s glance darted involuntarily to Gambit’s, then back again.  She looked uncertain, but at the same time intrigued.

            “Sounds interestin’,” she murmured at last. “But Ah can’t make a decision unless Ah know what it is you’re plannin’.  So why dontcha tell me, and maybe then we can figure somethin’ out.”

            Rachel took in a breath, realising that she’d got this far, and that _this far_ was further than she’d anticipated.  Now she had come to the hard sell, and this just happened to be the part where she didn’t know how to begin.

            “It isn’t easy to explain,” she began quietly, crossing slowly to the other side of the room.

            “Sugah,” Rogue began with sardonic bitterness, “what is, when it comes to us?”

            Rachel turned and looked at her.

            “And that’s exactly my point,” she spoke soberly. “ _Nothing_ is simple for us.  We’re not X-Men anymore, Rogue.  But we’re still the people we were when we _were_ X-Men.  We’re still capable of the same things – maybe even more.  If there’s anyone in the world who can sort out this mess it would be us.  We’re the _only ones_ left to make a difference.”

            Rogue was quiet a long moment, her glance sliding to Remy’s then back again just as quickly.  Rachel still couldn’t see him, but the white noise coming off him was almost unbearable in intensity.  She chose to ignore it – but it was only with an effort.

            “But, Rachel…” Rogue began at last, faintly. “You can’t _change_ anythin’ in the Timestream, sugah… You said so yourself…”

            Rachel nodded fiercely, refusing to back down now that she’d come to the crux of the matter.

            “You’re right,” she conceded. “I can’t change anything.  I can’t be physically embodied outside of my own timeline.  But with a boost to my powers, maybe it’s possible.  Maybe I could go back and change some things.  There might be a chance to set things right, to undo what Gambit did.”

            Rogue said nothing for what seemed like a full minute, but was really a few seconds.  This time she didn’t look to Gambit.

            “Ah know whatcha mean t’ say, sugah,” she rejoined in a low voice. “That you want _me_ to give you that boost.  Right?”

            Rachel nodded, more fiercely perhaps than she had intended.

            “Yes.  You have my psyche in your head already.  You have Tanya’s too, and she has exactly the same power I do.  If you keep in physical contact with me, if you continuously absorb me, you can amplify those powers, and I can amplify them psionically.  We can do it indefinitely, if we’re strong enough.”

            Rogue looked momentarily stunned.  Then she looked aside, at the ground, said in a flat tone, “You mean like a feedback loop.”

            “Yes.” Rachel nodded again. “We keep the loop going, unbroken, who knows how strong our combined powers could potentially be?  I have no idea how this’ll work, or even what the limitations of my powers are… But it’s worth a shot.  Don’t you think?”

            The older woman made no reply.  She let out a breath, shoulders sagging, and moved slowly to the nearby sofa.  When she sank into it, she looked like a woman defeated; she propped her elbows onto her knees and covered her face with her hands.  She seemed to be struggling with something, and Rachel stared at her mutinously, expecting an outright refusal and ready to fight it.

            After a few long drawn out moments, Rogue lifted her head and said in a voice that was thin with weariness; “Ah could drain you dry, Rae.”

            And Rachel set her lips, answered stoutly,

            “I know.”

            “Ah could _kill_ you.”

            She nodded.

            “I know that too.”

            Rogue dropped her hands, cast her eyes to the ground and finished quietly;

            “You could kill _me_.”

            Rachel said nothing, and Rogue looked back up at her.

            “Ah don’t have a clue what usin’ mah powers and your powers and Tanya’s powers all together would do to me, let alone what it could do to me to have them increasin’ exponentially in a constant feedback loop.”

            “But you _could_ do it, right?” Rachel asked her, not prepared to give any quarter unless she had pushed as far as she could go, and Rogue’s countenance was still one of indeterminable weariness.

            “Yes.  Ah guess Ah could.  Ah mean… Ah _think_ Ah know how to make it work…”

            And that would have to be enough for her.

            “So if you _think_ you can do it, don’t you think you could at least _try_ it?” Rachel persisted eagerly, stepping towards the woman sitting on the couch with both hands open. “You and I, together?”

            Rogue hesitated; and in that brief window of silence Remy looked at her, at her pale, weary expression, mistaking the gravity of the decision she was rolling over in her mind for the exhaustion of her convalescence.

            “And why can’t _you_ leave Rogue de fuck alone?” he shot at her caustically. “Can’t you see she’s been through enough already?  And by de way, Rachel…if you wanna accuse me to my face of fuckin’ dis timeline over you can do it.  It’s what everyone else is t’inkin. Ain’t gonna make no difference to me.”

            There was false bravado to his words.  Before she would’ve bristled at his apparent nonchalance, but, knowing what she knew about him now, she saw that what he was truly hiding was anguish and regret.  She had seen enough in the other Gambit to know that his indifference, his belligerence, was all just a front.  And so she chose to ignore him, rather than rise to his bait.  When she eyed him, it was with something that was almost, but not quite, dislike.

            “I’m not accusing you of anything.  And as for Rogue… I think she can make decisions for herself, Remy.”

            It was the first time she’d called him by name; and she could tell it didn’t particularly sit well with him.

            “ _Non_ ,” he retorted coolly. “You know exactly what kind of a person Rogue is.  You know she’ll do de right t’ing and try and help every time, even when it’s not in her best interests.  She needs rest.  Not _dis_.”

            A sardonic smile crossed the younger woman’s face.

            “You’re good at playing the knight in shining armour – when it suits you.” She looked aside, her expression turning to disgust. “Some things don’t change, even across time and space.”

            He was unfazed.

            “You say dat like it’s a bad t’ing, _p’tit_.  Truth is, I take it as a compliment.  And I ain’t gonna waste my time and yours makin’ excuses for havin’ Rogue’s welfare in mind.  You don’t have a clue what she’s been through de past few weeks, and now you’re askin’ her for more damn sacrifice.  And yeah… I ain’t gonna lie ‘bout havin’ ulterior motives neither.  Call me selfish, but I’d rather she stood a decent chance of comin’ back t’ me at de end of day.  If dey wanna put me away for dat, I’m guilty as fuckin’ charged.”

            Rachel scowled at him.

            “Still an insufferable prick,” she shot at him acidly; but Rogue cut in before he could make any comeback.

            “Hush, Remy, leave it be.”

            Her tone was impatient and he clamped his mouth shut, glared at her questioningly.

            “Ah think Ah can make this kinda decision by mahself, sugah.”

            He folded.

            “Fuck, Rogue.” The words blasted out of his mouth on an exasperated breath. “Don’t tell me you’re buyin’ into dis shit!”

            “So what else are we gonna do, Remy?” she asked him outright, spreading her hands helplessly. “Wait for all this to blow over?  Wait for our supplies to run out?  Wait for the Sentinels or the Friends of Humanity or some other vigilante gang to find us?  How long can we hold out?  And even if we did, what kind of a world would we have to go back to?” She looked up at Rachel, not even waiting for an answer from him. “Ah can do it,” she said. “Ah don’t know how well or for how long, but Ah know it’s _possible_.  Is that gonna be enough for you to work with?”

            Rachel looked at her as if momentarily taken aback.  Her glance swung to Gambit, whose expression had suddenly closed off; then back to Rogue again.  At last she spoke.

            “That’s a tough question to answer, Rogue.  I know about as much as you do about my limitations.  But like you say – I know it’s possible.  And I know we can _try_.”

            Remy said nothing.  Abruptly he turned and walked right out the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

            The silence he left in his wake was thick.  Rogue looked pained.

            “Rogue,” Rachel ventured at last, tentative, “you don’t have to do this…”

            “No.” Rogue raised a hand, curtailing anything she would’ve said next. “It’s _mah_ choice.  Not his.”

            Rachel hesitated.  She’d never liked Remy.  Not much anyhow.  But she’d always known enough to know that Rogue loved him; and that he loved her.  She’d _seen_ enough in her new home to know that, given the right circumstances, they were both capable of great things, whether together or apart.  She recognised the bond they shared through the Timestream.  It was something she didn’t want to interfere with.

            “I don’t wanna get between you two…” she insisted, but Rogue shook her head.

            “This isn’t about you, it isn’t about _this_ ,” she rejoined quietly. “It’s about the two of _us_.  It’s somethin’ me and him can only work out together.”

            She stood, walked to the mirror; Rachel watched as she fingered the butterfly pendant that still hung about her neck.

            “Tell me somethin’ Rachel,” she began in a quiet tone. “Yah don’t haveta answer if you don’t want to.  But Ah’d like to know, if Ah can.  Ah’d like to know… Are Remy and Ah together, in this other timeline?  Are we _happy_?”

            Rachel wavered.  Rogue caught the implication loud and clear.

            “Ah know,” she said on a small, deprecating laugh. “Ah shouldn’t ask that kinda question.  But sometimes Ah get the craziest feelin’… like, if only Ah could be happy somewhere else, Ah couldn’t care less what could happen to me here…”

            She faltered off and Rachel opened her mouth, answering on an impulse;

            “Sometimes.  You’re happy sometimes.”

            Rogue said nothing, nodded.  She looked down at the pendant clasped between her fingers, then back up at her reflection.

            “Ah guess that’s life, huh?  Full of _sometimes_ , full of _maybes._ It’s selfish to ask for anythin’ more.” She turned back to the younger woman with an infinite sadness in her eyes. “But Ah do wonder, yah know.  You say that Senator Kelly never died there, that there was never any war, any massacre at the mansion, any Sentinel rule.  That all my friends and family are still alive.  It makes it sound like it’s some paradise and if the two of us could ever be together for real, it would be in _that_ place.  But it’s not paradise, is it?  There’s no such thing.  Life is living, and livin’ is lovin’ and hatin’ and workin’ and playin’ and scramblin’ from one day to the next, tryin’ not to be confused.”

            Rachel looked down into her palms, swallowing the hardness in her throat.  She thought of Franklin.

            “Yes,” was all she said.

            Rogue nodded.  The gesture was more for her own benefit than for Rachel’s.  It was a signal that she had made up her mind.

            “We can do this,” she decided, that familiar steel magnolias tone to her voice. “We can _try_.”

            It was a hollow victory.  But Rachel took it, because there were very few victories left to her – always had been.

            “Yes,” she nodded. “We can try.”

 

*

 

            Her room was dark, cold, uninviting.

            She didn’t heed it.

            Time spent in the Timestream had somehow dulled her finer senses.

            Rachel flicked on the light and pushed the door shut behind her, yawning deeply.  When she heard the lock click without her touching it, she snapped round, her senses honed razor sharp in an instant.

            Somehow, she wasn’t so surprised to see Gambit standing there.

            “Remy,” she breathed his name, seeing the liquid fire in his eyes, knowing he was holding back on his rage with an effort.  The flame in his eyes flickered as she said it.

            “Gambit,” he corrected her flatly; but she wasn’t afraid of him.  She had seen him in all his most tender moments.  She knew he would not hurt her.  She knew he _could_.  But she knew he didn’t _want_ to.

            “Remy Entienne LeBeau,” she turned his name right back on him, flung it in his face. “I’ve seen you, and I know all about you.  I know all the bad things you’ve done.  And I’ve seen all the good.  Admit it.  You’re a _good_ man.  You’re a _loving, caring_ man.  Life shit on you and so you did what you could to survive.  But it doesn’t stop you from being what you are deep down on the inside.  It doesn’t stop you from being the man Jean Luc made you.  A _good_ one.”

            There was a small thread of anxiety in her, despite the defiance in her words; she knew, despite everything, despite her own strength, that he was dangerous.  And for a moment she thought he would prove to be so.  His eyes narrowed, his mouth drew tight as a bowstring.  Then – another second – and it was all gone.  The grimace replaced with a smile, one that was faintly sardonic, but one that was there nevertheless.

            “Is dat what you’ve seen in de other me, _p’tit_?” he asked her in a voice that said he didn’t care and so told her that he really _did_.

            “Life was better for you there,” she rejoined, her Hound senses still tingling despite the fact that the aura around him was less charged and more relaxed now. “It made it easier to see your true colours.  Still doesn’t mean you aren’t a dick though.”

            She held her breath; but she needn’t have worried.  His smile became less acerbic, more genuine.

            “Hm.” He looked amused. “Woulda kinda worried me, _chere_ , if I wasn’t.”

            He produced a cigarette from seeming thin air and lit it with the tip of a finger.  She knew he was goading her in some way and she refused to rise to the bait; not even when he took a drag and blew smoke right in her face.  She knew him well enough to pass his silly tests by now.

            “So,” she began, when he made no attempt at conversation nor to move, “what is it you’re here for?  I’m assuming this is about Rogue…”

            “Hmph.” He took in another drag, his countenance turning serious; this time he blew the smoke aside. “I s’ppose it is.”

            He sank down onto his haunches, squatting on the floor before her, staring at the ground as though reasoning out some chain of logic in his mind.  After a minute or so, he looked back up at her.

            “Rogue’s helpin’ you,” he said at last.

            “Yes,” Rachel replied.

            “And I ain’t stupid enough t’ think I can talk her out of it.”

            She stared down on him mutely, wondering where this was leading.  He looked aside, took another drag.

            “Rogue is good with her powers,” he continued reflectively after a long moment, smoke spilling from his nostrils. “Mystique trained her up some, and then Rogue did de rest.  Cleared out her mind, set it up all nice an’ orderly so dat she wouldn’t get no crazy distractions.  You ask her to do dis crazy t’ing.  I ain’t stupid.  I know she can do it.”

            He paused, gave her an appraising glance.

            “But do you stand half a chance of makin’ dis work?  For real?  I ain’t sure dat you do.”

            She met his eyes with a level coldness.

            “You think you can talk me out of this?”

            Again, he smiled.  That smile that spoke of confidence and self-deprecation all at once.

            “Don’t t’ink I can do dat neither.”

            “So why are you here?” she retorted, beginning to lose her patience. “You’d’ve stood a better chance trying to talk Rogue out of this than me…”

            She turned, intending to walk away from him, but he was up again in a flash, grabbing her arm and making her turn on him with her powers _that_ close to leaping right out from under her skin.

            “Don’t make me hurt you, Gambit,” she snapped at him, and he met her gaze, this time without any play at posturing but with complete seriousness.

            “Rogue already knows what I have t’ tell you,” he returned soberly. “And I happen t’ know she’s kept it to herself ‘cos she don’t want t’ bring me into dis fucked up plan of yours.  You t’ink I have her back, Rachel?  Well, she’s got mine too.  It’s what we do.  We look out for each other.  It’s why I’m gonna help you whether she likes it or not.”

            She gaped at him, not knowing whether to believe him or not.

            “You said this was a _crazy_ idea…”

            “ _Oui_ ,” he nodded. “But I can actually make it _work_.”

            She was prepared to stare him out for as long as it took for him to break.  Several beats went past before she realised he was being entirely sincere with her.  She lowered her eyes and jerked her arm free of his grasp; he let her take it back.  When she turned away from him and walked to the bed, her mind turning his words over and over, he made no move to leave.  He was expecting an answer from her.  An acceptance.  When she got to the bed, she swivelled round to face him.

            “Tell me,” she said at last.  He stood, unmoving.  Not a flicker of deception in his eyes.

            “Sinister gave me back full access to my Omega level powers,” he explained quietly.

            “And what does that mean?” she asked him belligerently, still not fully trusting him.  There was still no deceit implicit in his features.  He sighed, stubbed out the cigarette on the doorframe.  Then he walked closer to her, spread out his hands and said, “Why don’t you see for yourself?  Read my power signature; see what I can do.”

            “Is this some kind of a game, Gambit?” she shot at him. “A game to see if I can break through those static shields you put up?”

            He was still completely serious.

            “ _Non_.  They’re down, _p’tit_.  All down.  Read me.  It’s de easiest way t’ get you to understand.”

            So she did.  She probed him, quick, incisive, expecting those barriers to snap back up again in an instant and deny her entry.  She did it only because she knew she could have penetrated his shields anyway; but she was almost surprised when he made no resistance, when he allowed her to do exactly what she had to do.

            And so she pushed, harder than she had to.  Past those defences he had temporarily taken down, right into the heart of him, just because she could, just because she knew she’d never get another chance.

            And this is what she saw.

            The cold, the dark, like shards of shattered obsidian, forged and tempered by a volcanic heat, battered all to dust.  Re-forged and re-broken countless times, beautiful and crystalline one moment, shimmering like silver ash the next.  Rebuilt and pieced together, fragment by glistening fragment, wearily, lovingly, painstakingly.

            All because of _her_.

            And as soon as she had grasped onto that tiny, warm slither of _fact_ , the barriers came up again, so abrupt, so fast, that in a mere split second she’d been flung back inside herself unceremoniously, grappling with her body and her mind like a sailor grappling to find his sea legs.

            The corner of his mouth was cocked upward in a casual smile.

            “Believe me now?” he asked her.

            And she stared at him wide-eyed, battling the sense of nausea that had come with his psychic backlash.

            “You can _remake_ yourself in Time,” she gasped, and the smile dropped from his lips.

            “Hmph.  So it’s true den.  Can’t say I’ve actually tried it…”

            She gaped at him, amazed at his insouciance.

            “Do you have any idea what the fuck this _means_ , Gambit?”

            His glance was shrewd, penetrating.

            “ _Non_.  Not fully.  But I got somet’ing of a clue, _p’tit._   It’s why I’m here, after all.”

            He turned aside, ruminating, whilst Rachel fought with the sickening urge to retch. 

            “You… You can do what even _I_ can’t,” she murmured thickly. “You… You can _embody_ yourself in Time…  Split yourself apart atom by atom… Tap into the kinetic flow of the Timestream… Reform yourself at any point you wish, in any way…” She looked up at him, aghast at the terrible power he possessed. “You _can_ make it work…”

            He made no reply, hardly even seemed to have heard her.

            “I figured dis is what Irene meant t’ happen, then,” he muttered to himself. “Any one of us by ourselves couldn’t make dis happen.  But together…” He paused and glanced at her.  She returned the look.

            “Rogue could die doing this, you know,” she spoke the thing she knew she owed him to voice.  And his eyes turned sad.

            “So could I.  So could you too, Rae, when it comes to it.”

            She nodded.  They were on the same page now.  Completely and utterly.  He knew what was at stake.  He always had.

            “Are you sure?” she asked him flatly.  His expression didn’t change.

            “You think I can let Rogue face this alone?”

            She made no reply.  And he laughed softly, quietly.

            “So it looks like you’re stuck wit’ me then, Rae.  Sorry ‘bout dat.”

            He turned to go and just as he got to the door she stopped him.

            “Remy.”

            He stood in the doorway, back to her, hand on the door knob.  Silent, waiting.

            “The Timestream,” she said softly. “It binds you to her.”

            And he looked back at her, his smile wry.

            “Destiny always told me it was Fate.”

            “It’s the same thing,” she replied.

            “Mebbe,” he returned; and this time there was steel in his voice. “Truth is, people can call it whatever dey like, but sometimes all it is is just a man and a woman coming and there _is_ no reason why.  And I haveta believe dat.  I haveta believe dat ‘cos if I don’t my feelin’s ain’t real and everyt’ing I’ve done all these years is a lie.  Do you get dat, Rachel?”

            His question was a hard one – no compromise.  Again she thought of Franklin.  She thought of the only man she’d ever been on the road to feeling _something_ for, and she wondered just how much he had meant in the grander scheme of things.  Time and again, whilst wandering through the Timestream, she had wondered at just how throw-away his life had seemed, how pointless his death had been.  But how pointless had his life really been, when it had intersected with her own and taught her how to love?  Maybe that had been the _only_ point to his life.  And if it was, did it make him – _them_ – any less worthwhile?

            “Yes,” she said at last in answer to Remy’s question. “I get it.”

            He nodded.

            He pressed down on the door handle and then paused.

            “Oh,” he said, and he turned to her. “I almost forgot.”

            He put his hand in his pocket, walked up to her, and handed her something.

            “Found it,” he explained, as she held out her palm and he dropped the little something into it. “Thought I’d give it back.”

            She looked down.

            In the centre of her palm lay a little star earring, a scuffed red stud with the back butterfly missing.  She stared at it.

            “Where—?”

            “I found it at de mansion,” he interjected flatly, before she could finish her question. “Don’t thank me, _p’tit_.  Might bring you luck.”

            He turned back to the door and left her.

            And she closed her hand over the jewel, the last little bit of home left in her possession reunited with her at last.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	20. The Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue and Remy hash things out, and get a few ‘moments’ in besides……

            It was an hour or so since the last tremor had come and gone.

            It didn’t take away from the fact that he was standing here, and the way he was feeling right now, it wouldn’t matter if there were tremors up topside or none at all.

 

            Remy stood outside Rogue’s room and pondered.

            His emotions were a fucking mess right now, but he couldn’t deny them, however tumultuous, however confusing they may be.  He’d felt angry that evening – angry, betrayed, impotent.  But, since his talk with Rachel, that anger had dwindled into something else.  Clammy desperation.  A churning in his gut that wouldn’t leave.  And here he was.  More aware than ever of just how much he needed her.

            It was a selfish need, especially considering what he had done to her.  Though he had _hoped_ for her forgiveness, he had never _expected_ her to give it.  And now that he had it… somehow it made it worse.  It chafed to know that people despised him for all his transgressions whilst he still had a monopoly on her love.  Hell, he didn’t give a shit about what any of them thought.  It was the fact that _Logan_ thought that more than anything that got to him.  Logan, who he just _knew_ reckoned he could do a better job of being the man in Rogue’s life than Remy ever could.

            So he’d taken a step back.  Tried to prove to himself and to everyone else that he wasn’t just about manipulating feelings and crossing lines.  That he wasn’t just a man who wanted a woman and didn’t give a damn about the rest of the world.

            He’d slept on the sofa.  Gone for breakfast and dinner early to avoid her and everyone else.  Spent most daylight hours trying to sort out the messes he’d helped create topside.  Spent the nights trying not to think about her kisses and her warmth and the timbre of her voice in his ear as she murmured his name.

            He tried not to think about those months they had spent together _being_ together, when everything had been simple and, for the first time in a long time, he had been able to be completely honest about his feelings.

            He missed it.  He missed it enough to want it back.  But the truth was simpler.   Tomorrow might be the last tomorrow he had.  He was being selfish, but he was also telling himself that this was what she would want too.  And he didn’t want to be alone.  He didn’t want to face tomorrow without spending one more night with her.

            So he knocked at her door, just as he had done aged seventeen, eighteen.  He was the old him, waiting outside Belle’s bedroom, not knowing if he was going to gain admittance or not.

            It took a moment before he heard her get out of bed and cross the room.  The door opened just a crack, then wider.  She stood there looking up at him in grey sleep pants and one of his old T-shirts, one he’d forgotten he’d even owned.  He must have left it back in Chicago, one of the few things he’d left her to remember him by.  He almost smiled to see it.

            “Remy,” she greeted him in a voice that was both softly surprised and expectant, and,

            “Can I come in?” he asked, trying not to _push_ too hard, despite what the keenness of his emotions was telling him.  She stood there a moment, eyes on his, considering.  He said nothing, waited.

            “Sure,” she finally answered.

            She opened the door wider, letting him pass through.  He did so, light-headed, his heart pounding in his chest.  It was insane that he was feeling like this.  He’d felt a lot of things in her presence; he’d run the whole gamut of emotions in the years he’d known her.  But he’d never felt like _this_.  _Giddy_.

            She shut the door behind him softly, and he turned and looked at her and she looked at him, and neither of them knew how to begin this.  Somehow though, it seemed okay.  It seemed okay to just be with her, standing here, doing nothing.

            “So,” she said softly, breaking the silence first. “You here to try and talk me outta this thing with Rachel?”

            For all her softness, for all her quietness, there was steel in her voice – no compromise.  He looked at her, ran his hand through his hair, licked his lips, smiled faintly.

            “Y’ t’ink I could do dat, _chere_?” he asked at last.

            She seemed a little surprised at his response.

            “No,” she replied after a moment. “But Ah think you’d try.”

            He nodded with absent agreement, turning aside and running his gaze over the room.  Cream and pastel shades of green.  Rumpled sheets on a single bed that were twisted into the shape of her.  A bottle of painkillers on the nightstand – heavy duty ones prescribed by Forge, no doubt.  His heart twisted at the sight of it.

            “Rogue,” he began softly, half turning back towards her. “I ain’t stupid enough t’ t’ink I can talk you outta dis.  And I ain’t gonna insult either of our intelligences by pretendin’ I’m gonna try.” She gave him a questioning look and he turned to her fully, continued in a more sober tone; “I just got back from talkin’ wit’ Rachel.  I’m comin’ wit’ you guys.”

            She stared at him, eyes wide.

            “No,” was all she said; and he frowned, hurt to hear her response.

            “Why ‘no’, _chere_?  Don’t you t’ink it’s a bit unfair for _you_ to be playin’ all dis hero shit while I gotta go down in history as de villain?”

            There was thin humour in his voice, and she wasn’t taken in by it.

            “Remy, if this is about you tryin’ t’ prove yourself to the others…”

            He laughed.

            “You t’ink dat’s what dis is?”

            She fell silent.  He saw her eyebrows come together, a breath linger in her throat.

            “Ah won’t be responsible for _killin’_ you, Remy,” she told him in a taut voice.

            “And I don’t wanna be responsible for killin’ _you_ , Rogue,” he answered seriously, without missing a beat. “And we both stand a pretty good chance of either or both happenin’.  But,” he added in a quieter tone, “if dat’s de case, I’d rather it happened wit’ your hand in mine.  I ain’t gonna stand aside and watch you put your life on de line wit’out me bein’ right dere beside you.  _Dat’s_ what dis is about.”

            She looked at him, green eyes clear and level.  When she finally looked aside her voice was hoarse.

            “And you’d be willin’ t’ take that risk?” she asked him.  He couldn’t believe she still had to ask him that question.

            “Always, _chere_.  You know dat.”

            Her gaze dropped to the ground and he hated it.  He hated not having her eyes right there on his.  It was like being denied air, or water.

            “Rogue,” he murmured softly. “I know what you’ve been t’inkin’.  You purposely kept quiet about my powers wit’ Rachel because you didn’t want me t’ be dragged into dis.  I know you wanna save me de grief.  But you also know, deep down, dat dis is what Irene had planned all along.  You, me and Rachel – all three of us – makin’ right what was wrong.  Neither of us can do it without the other.”

            “You don’t _believe_ in any of that stuff,” she whispered to the floor, grasping her elbows tight, and he couldn’t bear it; he crossed the room to her, took her wrists in his hands, placed her palms on his chest.

            “C’mon, _chere_.  I say I don’t believe in a lotta t’ings.  But I _believed_ enough in a lotta t’ings to get to dis point.  And I don’t know whether any of dis Fate crap is real or not, but I know one t’ing.  My feelin’s are tellin’ me dat I can’t let you do dis alone.  And I can try and ignore Fate, _chere_.  But I can’t ignore my feelin’s.”

            She looked up at him then, and he was surprised to see tears swimming in her eyes.  It pulled at his heart so hard it took his breath away.

            “Don’t be sad, _chere_ ,” he begged her. “ _Please_.”

            She bit her lip, blinking her tears away as though they had betrayed her.

            “Ah ain’t sad, Remy,” she whispered. “Not for _you_.  For us, maybe.  For what we could never _be_ , yes.”

            She broke away from him, moving back towards the bed; but he reached out, took her arm, turned her right back round to face him.

            “Dat’s _my_ burden, Rogue.  I was never man enough to face up t’ what I really wanted.  _Merde._   Maybe I’m still not.  But de burden’s all mine, Anna.  Don’t make it your own.”

            She looked at him; he looked at her.  An arm’s length away – too far, too close.  After everything that had happened, after the closeness they had shared, the distance they’d put between one another, this point of push and pull, just a hair’s breadth apart, their eyes on one another… It was the most intimate moment they’d ever shared.  He couldn’t release his grip.  She couldn’t repel it.

            “Don’t talk me outta dis, _chere_ ,” he pleaded softly with her. “It makes sense.  Y’know neither one of us could stand by and watch the other walk away for good.  Y’ _know_ dat.”

            Her eyes flickered but she didn’t blink.  Not once.  And he chanced it then.  He pulled her in, slowly, gently, inch by inch, giving her an out, giving her a chance to say _no_ … and she didn’t.  She didn’t say a word, not even when she was standing right up flush against him, and he couldn’t help it; he put his arms round her, put his face in her hair… He breathed her in like he’d never breathed before… And the stillness in her broke… He felt the sharp burst of her breath on his neck, her arms come up around him too, and for the longest moment they held one another, silent and tender, closer than close, in a way they’d never been able to hold one another before.

            “I can’t let you walk away from me, Rogue,” he murmured, his heart so full it almost felt fit to burst. “Don’t ask me to, _chere_.  After everythin’ I’ve done for you, after everythin’ we’ve been through, you can’t ask me t’ throw it all away now.  You can’t ask me to turn my back on you.  You can’t.”

            She didn’t fight him, didn’t say a word.  But he felt her lips on his neck, the tenderness of her kisses – and he knew she had accepted.  They were in this together.

            They drew apart slowly, a fraction of an inch, foreheads pressed lightly together, her fingers curled into his Tee, his around her waist, and it felt good; it felt good not to be hiding and running and pretending anymore.

            “Seems funny,” she finally murmured, reaching out to trace the line of his cheekbone with her thumb. “Here we are again, in exactly the same place we were two years ago.  Saying goodbyes, ready to hurt one another again, ready to _kill_.” She paused, her breath on his lips, warm and soft as butterfly wings, her fingers stroking his jawline gently. “Ah don’t want that anymore, Remy,” she continued quietly. “Ah don’t.  Ah want our lifetime.  Ah want what we both wanted that day in the rain when…” She trailed off, began again. “Do you remember, Remy?”

            He managed it – a thin sliver of a smile, coaxed out by the sweetness of the memories and the softness of her caresses.

            “I never promised anyt’ing,” he murmured.

            “No.  You didn’t.  But you _wanted_ it.  You wanted it like Ah did.”

            _Yes_.  He had.  He still did.  But he couldn’t say it.

            “Y’know what Ah’m _really_ scared of, Remy?” she spoke when he said nothing. “Ah’m scared this is it.  No more chances.  No more goodbyes.  No more _lifetime_.  Ah’m scared we’ll never be able to get past this point and just _begin_.  Ah’m scared we’ll never get an _us_.”

            She sighed, buried her face right back in the crook of his neck and breathed, soft, shallow; and he put his face back in her hair, murmured, “But, _chere_ … you know it, sweet… we’ve _always_ been _us_ …”

            “And it’s never been enough,” she whispered back; and she kissed his neck, once, twice, three times, more… “Ah’m in love with you, Remy LeBeau,” she said between kisses, “It ain’t about destiny or fate or the Timestream… It’s me.  It’s who Ah am.  The woman who loves you, Remy.  The woman who always will.”

            And she was still kissing him, kissing him again and again like she couldn’t stop herself from doing so; and he held his breath as if she’d stolen it away from him, just like the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, the moment he now knew he had been running towards his whole life and more.

            This was no different.

            He was exactly where he was supposed to be.

            He kissed her hair, gathered it in his hand, wound the silken strands round his fingers.  He pressed his face into it and breathed in her scent.  He closed himself off from the idea that he could ever be without this.  When they finally kissed, it was like the first and the last time.  The guilt, the anguish that had always told him he didn’t deserve her – it slipped away with the tide.  He had never had to earn her.  She had always been his, just as he had always been hers.

 

 

            It was she who broke the kiss first, pulling back just the slightest of distances, palms on his cheeks, eyes grazing the length of his face, her breath warm on his lips.  It was torture not to have her mouth on his; he moved to bridge the gap between them once more, but she held him back, and he obeyed, watching silently as she stepped back, letting her take the lead, letting her show him what she wanted.  She snatched at the hem of her T-shirt, drew it up over her head, her breasts flashing white and round in the dimness; and he held his breath as she slipped the pants and panties down over her hips and her thighs and stepped out of them when they hit the ground… And she stepped right back up to him, perfectly, flawlessly naked; and he stood there, confused, as she pulled at the drawstring of his pants, somehow hurt that she thought that _this_ was all he wanted from her.

            “What?” she murmured, when he didn’t move and didn’t speak; she hooked the waistband of his pants with her thumbs and he said, “So where does dis lead us?”

            She paused, looked at him, half-curious.

            “Ah dunno,” she replied softly. “You tell me.”

            His pants fell to the floor.  She touched him, gently, intimately, and he swallowed hard, his eyelids flickering.

            “If dis is our last night,” he spoke, his voice hoarse, “sense and reason says we should go out wit’ a bang.”

            “Exactly,” she replied; but there was a thread of curiosity to her voice when he still made no move.

            “And if dis _isn’t_ our last night, den what?”

            “Then,” she answered simply, “we either carry on like we’ve always done before, or…”

            “Or…?”

            “Or we get our lifetime.  If we both want it.”

            He thought about it.  He tried not to think about it in terms of the past or the future.  He tried to think about the _now_.  He tried to be honest with himself about what he wanted from it.  He tried to be honest with this question he’d been asking himself since what felt like time immemorial.

            _What did he want?_

            And the answer was simple.

            It was right in front of him. 

            Just like it always had been.

            He took her hands and pressed them to his lips and she smiled. 

            She led him to the bed and when they were there she turned, threading her fingers gently through his own, raising her eyes to his, shy, uncertain, as if to give him that opening, that final chance to walk away, to save himself.

            He was silent, wondering that she could ever think he would want to take that opening now.

            “Are you sure?” she whispered.

            And he worked his fingers loose from hers, took her face between his palms and whispered back; “Always.”

            They said nothing more.

            Together they sank onto her single bed, onto sheets that were still warm and thick with the scent of her, bodies joining with artless, effortless choreography, and they touched and they kissed and they explored, no referee but time.  He kissed her with all the passion that the long months without her had driven him to deny, that all the empty days of his feigned defection and betrayal had forced him to keep hidden.  After all the lies, all the subterfuge; after all the mental fencing he’d played with her that night at the docks, the almost pathological need to reach out to her in the midst of his callous deception… to be with her now, like this, was a blessing he’d hardly dared to entertain.  It was heady, it was intoxicating – all the more so for the fact that he knew he might not ever have this again.

            It was like he had never had her before and never would again, and that need, that desperation chased his every kiss, every caress, every touch, until she was gasping and panting and crying out for mercy.

            He paused, but only to recapture her lips; and she broke off mid-kiss, holding him back with a hand, green eyes smouldering, as he moved forward instinctively to bridge the gap.

            She shifted, an inch or two that almost tipped his frayed and heightened senses into free-falling overdrive.

            His lips parted in a subconscious, sibilant hiss that he could barely contain.

            “Shhhh,” she murmured almost absently, her hands sweeping slowly up over his shoulders.

            She pressed him back against the sheets, wrapping her legs round his hips, and he gasped, painfully aroused as she gazed down at his lips with an almost predatory intent, gloriously beautiful and touchable and _real_.

            He couldn’t help it.

            He reached out and filled his hands with her body – dips and peaks and troughs and valleys, smooth curves the texture of alabaster – soft and uncomplicated and _his._

            Her name escaped his lips like a prayer, like a mantra.

            _Anna_.

            And she leaned forward, the lightness of her kiss teasing his lips, gentle, playful, before he felt her open his mouth with her own, her face twisting into their kiss, her tongue brushing his, rough and liquid… …

            His moan or hers – he couldn’t tell, maybe both.   

            He couldn’t tell because he lost it then, all sense of time, all sense of restraint, all sense of anything except for the points where his body began and hers ended, and he couldn’t tell anymore, he couldn’t … …

            He heard her murmur something then, soft and unintelligible against the soundtrack of their breathing, and she raised her face to look at him with a faraway stare, her bottom lip caught delicately, ever so slightly behind her teeth as her fingers reached back to grasp him gently, familiarly.

            He needed no other prompt, no other guidance.

            His body moved impatiently to meet hers, and he watched her with a kind of stunned admiration as her lips parted in a cry that was all at once vulnerable and needful and painfully sexy – he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful in all his life, and he reached for her, his hands splaying star-like on her back, gripping her shoulder blades as he finally pushed inside her, caught in an almost giddy moment of glorious freefall.

            He cried out instinctively, sinking his teeth into the succulent dip between her neck and her shoulder in an unconscious effort to silence it.

            For the first time he was surprised – bewildered even – by his own lust, his own loss of self-control.  It was enough to give him pause, for him to wonder at the way she stripped him bare, even as they lay there holding one another, motionless, her breath coming hard and hot against his ear, its quivering rhythm punctuated only by the softest of whimpers.

            It was in that lingering moment of stillness that fear touched him – a fear he couldn’t explain, a hidden terror that had always forced him to keep his shields up, to wear that mask of cool, calm professionalism, to manipulate and cheat and lie and steal, to always keep his cards hidden close to his chest.

            It was fear of the thing he’d once entrusted to Belladonna, the indescribable pain of giving away little pieces of yourself and having them thrown back in your face because you deserve it.

            It was the reason he’d built and rebuilt that wall round his heart, shored up the cracks and blocked up the holes over and over and over, letting whatever it was left inside dry up and dessicate and wither away.

            And he felt it all crumbling.

            He felt it all begin to erode, and inside, inside was something horrible and wonderful he could hardly bear to look at……

            It was something almost physical and he gasped with it, instinct urging him to capture it all back, to shut it all off again… And she _looked_ at him.  That sad, sweet gaze locked onto his, patient, loving.  Her ivory-soft fingers smoothed over the curve of his lips, the line of his jaw, easing him towards an acceptance of this moment, telling him _it’s okay, it’s okay to let go_ … …

            “Remy,” she whispered.

            And that was all it took.

            His name on her lips and he was broken wide open, the hardened shell split, all the years of pain and guilt and denial spilling forth.

            “Anna,” he murmured.

            He said it with love, with gratitude.

            In return she gave him a smile that was as subtle and warm as all the beautiful things he’d ever seen in his lonely, empty existence.

            He abandoned himself to her then, cast every last card he owned down to the ground.

            He let himself make love to her with the acceptance that he was _in_ love with her, and even if he couldn’t say it it was there between them, coaxing honesty from him at every turn, reassuring him with the confidence that, for a little while at least, there was nothing else but the two of them, no future, no past – nothing on the other side of this but them. 

            He had laid himself down at her feet for the very first time, all of him, every single iota.  And he wasn’t scared anymore.  He wasn’t scared of being here because he realised now he was exactly where she was; they were on their knees together.

            A thief and his muse at the end of the road, with nothing left to fight for but each other.

 

*

 

            Rogue’s bedroom was small but light, and it smelled of vanilla and orange blossom.

            Here, underground, there was no night or day – but his cell told him it was twenty-five after six, and he was pretty sure that, up above, a new day was starting.  Another day of struggle and violence, no doubt, but a new day nonetheless. 

            A day where just about everything hung in the balance.

            Remy sighed.

            He’d only slept a little that night.  When he hadn’t he’d watched her sleep, watched the simplicity with which she lived, one uncomplicated breath to the next.

            He had taken life, so many times – and now he wondered at how precious it seemed in her when it had seemed so throwaway in almost everything else, including himself.

            When she’d awoken they’d both said nothing.  They’d held one another, but hadn’t shared a word right up until this moment.  It was strange, but despite the knowledge of what he was going to face in a few short hours, he felt content.  He felt like a train on its tracks, moving forwards at a comfortable pace.  Never mind the rocky road ahead.  He was used to it.  He was used to crossing bridges when he got to them.  He was used to taking on shit and wading on through it.  He was used to the idea that he might die at any time.

            He wasn’t so used to the idea of taking her down with him, and it stank but he wasn’t going to get this any other way, so he figured he might as well relax about it.  He might as well head right on this one-way track and make sure he was ready for any pitfalls along the way.

            The silence lingered and lengthened into something almost audible.

            Remy sat up in bed and lit a cigarette. It was less nerves than habit, and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it but he needed it.  He needed some sense of normalcy.  He needed something to tell him that today was just another day.

            “Those things’ll kill yah,” she murmured softly behind him.  There was no humour in her voice.  She sounded almost sad.

            “Hmm,” he sounded quietly.  What once had been a joke between them seemed wistful, almost morose.  It made memories of happier times tug at him painfully.    

“You know what it is you’re s’pposed to do?” she asked softly, breaking the silence.  He took in a breath, removed the cigarette from his lips and studied the glowing tip for a moment.

            “Nope,” he answered. “You?”

            She didn’t reply, but he felt her fingers on the small of his back, climbing the track of his spine slowly.

            “Ah have an idea,” she murmured.  There was something to her voice – not confidence, not resignation exactly.  It was a firmness. A finality.  He grunted and popped the cigarette back into his mouth.

            “Ah’ve been thinkin’,” she continued pensively after a short silence. “About what Essex said.  About my powers, and who Ah am.  About who Ah could _be_.  All the mutants who’ve ever lived.” She paused, stroked the base of his spine with a finger; he shuddered at the sensation. “Ah could absorb you, Remy.  You and Rachel.  Ah could do it today and steal everything you have.  Jean Grey’s inside me.  And Scott and Logan and Kurt and Irene and so many others.  They’re _all_ inside me.  And as long as Ah live they’ll never be dead.  A part of them will live inside me forever.”

            He said nothing.  He stared at the wall and pressed his lips shut.

            “Essex was right,” she began again quietly. “Ah could bring a world of pain to anyone who’s ever hurt me in this life.  If Ah decided to channel all the powers Ah’ve ever absorbed, Ah could probably destroy all the Sentinels today with just a thought.”

            He half looked back at her over his shoulder.

            “And would you?” he asked her softly.

            And it was a long drawn out moment before she replied, “Ah don’t know……”

            He looked back, pressed the cigarette to his lips, took a drag.

            “Then I guess dat’d make you exactly what Essex _wanted_ you to be.”  He exhaled smoke, frowned. “I’m sorry,” he muttered as an afterthought.

            “For what?” She sounded puzzled.

            “For what Essex did to you.  I don’t just mean back at his lab.  I mean what he _did_ to you.  Took you away from your momma and poppa, put dat timer in your genetic code, made you lose control of your powers, made you kill Cody… I’m sorry about all’a dat.”

            Her hand paused on his back and he felt her palm there, warm and soft, as she spoke.

            “None of that was your fault, Rem.”

            And he shook his head gently.

            “I’m still sorry.  I’m sorry he made you suffer.  You don’t know how much it hurt, _chere_ , to see him make you suffer more.”

            Her hand didn’t move.

            “If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now,” she whispered, and he allowed himself a smile.

            “ _Non_.  ‘Cos we chose to follow Irene’s path, not Essex’s, right?  Fuck, _chere_ , when it comes to it, I ain’t sure which is better.”

            She laughed.

            “Yeah.  It _was_ kinda temptin’, Ah guess, the idea you threw at me, of the beautiful new world we could make together, just you and me.  But you know what, Remy?  We can still walk that path.  We can toss away this whole idea of Rachel’s and do things _Essex’s_ way.  Destroy all the Hounds and the Sentinels and anyone else who would stand in our way, and start again from scratch.  We could walk out that door right now and do it together.”

            He wasn’t sure whether she was joking or not.  He decided, on balance, that it was best not to figure it out.

            “We could do dat, _chere_ ,” he answered, hitching a grin, “but I’d need to get my pants on first.”

            This time she didn’t laugh and he turned, surprised to see that her expression was completely serious.

            “You’d do it, wouldn’t you,” she murmured, and he looked down at her blankly.

            “What?”

            “You’d do it, if Ah wanted it bad enough.  You’d do this _Essex’s_ way, wouldn’t you.”

            He sucked in a breath and looked away.

            “We get through dis, _chere_ , and I’ll do anythin’ you want.” And he took another drag as she laughed for real this time.

            “Ha.  Be careful what you wish for…”

            “Yeah, I know.  I might just get it,” he finished for her morosely.  He lay back down beside her and she propped herself up against his chest, studying the scars on his torso like she’d always used to do back in the day, mapping out the latticework with the tip of her finger.

            “Where did you get this?” she asked suddenly, tracing a large, star-like scar on the side of his ribs.  He looked at it, thumbed it lightly, a little surprised to realise that this was the first time she’d ever asked him about any of the scars he wore.

            “Dis?”

            She nodded.

            “Got dis dat day in de mansion,” he explained quietly. “When de military attacked.  Was lookin’ for you.  Dey came at me wit’ guns.  So I ran.  Didn’t run fast enough.” She said nothing, and he somehow felt compelled to continue, “It was your life or mine, _chere_.  Didn’t figure I’d be any use t’ you dead, and by de time Sinny got me patched up, I didn’t figure you were livin’ anymore anyway.”

            Her forefinger circled the smooth patch of skin thoughtfully.

            “Ah didn’t know you almost died too,” she whispered.

            “I didn’t.  I could’ve, but I didn’t.”

            Her eyes lifted to his, disarmingly level.

            “Ah didn’t know you were lookin’ for me neither.”

            He shrugged.

            “You never asked.”

            “Ah always thought you just ran.”

            “I did.”

            “But… but you never wanted to just _leave_ me there…  Not even back then…”

            “No,” he agreed. “I didn’t.”

            Her eyes held his.  Eyes to strip him bare.  Eyes to put him back together again.  And the words pushed at his mouth, words that, even now, hurt too much to be said.  He reached out and fingered that curl of white hair that wouldn’t stay put and said, “You do know how I feel about you, right?”

            And the smallest slant of a smile touched her lips.

            “Hmm-mmm.”

            There was such a twist of humour to her voice that he was perplexed.

            “ _What_?”

            “Ah know you’d rather ask me if Ah knew,” she answered slyly, “than tell me outright.”

            He grinned, looked at the cigarette between his fingers.  Slowly he drew the energy from the charged particles back through his skin, his nerves, his bones, his cells; the cigarette fizzled out.

            “I guess some things don’t change, even on de verge of death,” he mused, contemplating the once-glowing stick of tobacco.  He paused, laid it carefully aside on the nightstand.

            “Verge of death or not, Ah swear, if we come outta the other side of this you’re so givin’ up that disgustin’ habit,” she joked with just the barest hint of that old Southern sass.

            “Hmph.” He smirked and stroked her hairline with a thumb. “Like I said… we get out the other side of dis I’ll do anythin’ you want…”     

“And Ah’m gonna hold you t’ that, swamp snake,” she warned him humorously, and before he even had a chance to back track she’d leaned in and kissed him, soft and sweet and silky; and he put his arms round her, not knowing what any of this meant, but knowing that if that if this was it, and if there really _was_ no coming out the other side of this… He was exactly where he wanted to be.

            He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he heard Rachel’s psionic ping sounding in that strange place somewhere above and inside them; that familiar old psychic ringtone that Xavier had so often used.

            Rogue drew back, her lip caught beneath her teeth, and they shared a look.

            “You wanna take dis?” he finally asked her in a low voice, and she grimaced.

            “Ah guess Ah should.  Ah told her to wake me up at half six.  Then again, Ah wasn’t figurin’ on you bein’ here t’ distract me.”

            He grinned.

            “You were de one who invited me up here, remember?”

            “Yeah,” she replied with a small smile. “But Ah figured you’d be too mad to take me up on the offer.”

            “And I can stay mad at you for about as long as it takes for me to realise I’d rather be where I am right here, right now,” he answered, only for the tailend of his sentence to be cut off by another psychic ping from Rachel.  Again Rogue passed him that questioning look and this time he couldn’t help but laugh.

            “Go on, _chere_.  You talk t’ her.  It ain’t like you need my permission or anythin’…”

            “Ah guess not,” she threw back slyly, tossing her glossy curls over her shoulder and casting out psychically, _Ah’m here, Rae._

            There was a slight pause before Rachel’s voice answered.

            _Thank God. I was beginning to think you’d had second thoughts.  Did Gambit talk to you last night?  I can’t get a hold of him…_

            Rogue smirked, running her fingers absently over the length of his collarbone.

            _Remy’s here with me._

 _Oh._   Another pause.  _You want me to leave you guys alone?_ she added after a moment.

            Rogue looked at him, her cinnamon hair slipping back off her shoulder and lightly brushing his chest.  It was the simplest, most unassuming of movements, but it brought home to him just how close he was to losing the chance of ever experiencing those moments with her again.  The thought must’ve shown on his face because she suddenly looked troubled.

            “You havin’ second thoughts?” she asked him softly.

            He looked away, his jaw working visibly.

“ _Non_ ,” he said at last. Then, “I’m in all de way…if you are, _chere_ …”

            _Guys?_ Rachel’s voice sounded again nervously.

            _It’s okay_ , Rogue replied mentally. _We’re still here.  Just havin’ a bit of a discussion._

The younger woman seemed to understand.

            _Second thoughts?_ she stated sympathetically.

            _Why, p’tit?_ he asked her. _Ain’t you got any?_

            There was a slight pause.

            _I’m in if you are._

            Remy nodded to himself.

            _And Rogue is in 100%.  And I’m in 100% if she is.  So I guess dat leaves you no choice._

            They could almost hear Rachel’s sigh, an outward steeling of herself.

            _Right.  Shit.  I’ve never tried anything like this before, you know._

 _Neither have I,_ both Rogue and Remy replied together.

            Silence.  All three wondering what the hell they were thinking to be even considering this madness.  But they’d got this far.  And somehow, it seemed _right_.  It didn’t matter whether this was Destiny’s plan or not.  There was a chance, a _real_ chance, that they could pull this off.  And that they could give this entire world, this _timeline_ , a second chance.

            _Okay_ , Rachel’s voice filtered back to them. _We do this.  See you guys in thirty?_

 _Is it too much to ask for an hour?_ Remy asked seriously and Rogue gave him a _look_.  He shrugged at her; but Rachel merely laughed.

            _Sure.  It’s not like it’s gonna make much difference, right?_

            And she was gone.

            Remy sighed heavily, longingly.

            “Ah can’t believe you just asked for that,” Rogue commented, sitting up in bed and grabbing a band from the nightstand, pulling her hair up into an unruly ponytail.  He watched her with a dry mouth.  She was tying all sorts of knots in him just doing her hair up for Chrissakes.  Everything she was doing stood out to him with a poetic sort of clarity.  She was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.

            “Kiss me,” he said in what felt like a barely coherent voice, his mouth was so thick.

            She looked down on him, really exasperated this time, and he hastened to add:

            “Dis ain’t about sex, _chere_.  I asked for de extra half hour ‘cos I was t’inkin’ more dat you’d need to say your goodbyes.  Especially to Raven.  Now kiss me before you go.”

            She did.  It felt like it wasn’t going to be even a fraction of what he wanted to keep going through this day, but he figured it would have to be enough.  They parted only reluctantly.

            “Yah really are somethin’, Remy LeBeau,” she murmured against his lips.

            “I know,” he murmured back. “Now go, ‘cos I’m dangerously on de edge of changin’ my mind.”

            She pulled a wry face at him, got up, grabbed her clothes, and went into the bathroom.

            Remy sighed and turned onto his side.  He thought about all the people that had touched his life; he thought about Jean-Luc, Henri, Belle.  He thought about all the people he’d never got to say goodbye to.

            Jean-Luc.

            The man who’d taken him in, despite his fear.  The man who’d learned to love him as a son.

            _“What do I do?” he asks of his foster father in the quiet of his study, a quiet only interrupted by the soft ticking of the grandfather clock._

_Jean-Luc stands by the window, looks outside with a face Remy has never seen so taut, so lined before._

_“Find a new home,” he answers wearily. “Build a new life.  It’s what I taught you to do.”_

_His voice is hard.  Distant.  There are many things Remy can take.  Physical pain is nothing.  Even Belle turning her back on him is something he thinks he can handle.  But this hurts like fuck.  Seeing the man who cared for him, who raised him – a mutant, a stranger – unable to look him in the eye.  Unable to give him a kind word._

_He realises what he’s lost now.  It hits him like a ton of bricks.  He’s murdered a man in cold blood, and he’s going to pay for it.  No charming himself out of this scrape.  He’s going to learn what it is to be alone._

_He feels sick to the stomach._

_He wipes the wetness from his nose with the back of his hand._

_He realises what this is._

_It’s fear._

_He’s scared._

_“What if… What if dere ain’t not’ing out dere for me… not’ing on de other side of dis…” he voices the thing he’s scared of, and Jean-Luc does something he hasn’t done in years.  He turns to Remy, he walks over to him, and when he’s close enough, he smacks him hard upside the head._

_And Remy takes it like a schoolboy receiving his just desserts._

_“You stupid boy!” Jean-Luc booms down over him. “Dere is_ always _somet’ing on de other side of dis!  I’ve been a fool, Remy LeBeau!  I’ve spoiled you, I’ve made you flabby and lazy and stupid if you don’t know how t’ survive outta dese four walls!  God knows dis is my punishment for it.”_

_Remy dares not look up at him.  He hangs his head, stares down at the floor with moisture gathering in his eyes.  He is mortified, torn beyond the point of tears._

_“Step up, boy,” Jean-Luc commands him in a voice like iron, hard on the surface, molten and red hot beneath. “Step up and be a man for once.  Take dis punishment,_ build _somet’ing out of it.  Forget you ever had a life here.  Just promise me you won’t forget one t’ing.  Don’t forget you’re a t’ief.  And if dere_ is _not’ing on de other side…”_

_He pauses; and Remy doesn’t look up, doesn’t breathe, waits for the last piece of advice he knows Jean-Luc will ever give him… And nothing comes._

_He stares at the floor like he can burn it up and asks of the man he’s come to call ‘father’;_

_“And if dere ain’t?”_

_And he can almost feel Jean-Luc’s frown, heavy as all the years of exile he knows must now follow._

_“Den, mon fils… you steal.  You steal from Fate.”_

 

*          *          *          *          *

_-END OF PART THREE-_


	21. The Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the calm before the storm, and Rogue takes the time to say her goodbyes before going out on a potential suicide mission.

            Remy was sitting on the edge of the bed as Rogue came out of the bathroom, his back to her, his shoulders slumped with something that looked like resignation.

            She walked up to him, saw that he was twisting an unlit cigarette absently between the fingers of his right hand, his mind obviously elsewhere.  She reached out, rested a palm on his shoulder; but he wasn’t surprised at her presence.  He placed his free hand over hers, rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. 

This was nothing out of the ordinary.  They’d been here before, after all.  It wasn’t that long ago that they had been preparing to go out to the Hound Pens, to risk death at each other’s hands.  It hadn’t been exactly like this, though.  Back then, they hadn’t been honest with each other about their feelings.  They had never expected the months that had come after.

            They had never expected to fall deeper in love with each other than they had already.

            “What are _you_ goin’ to do?” she asked him softly, after a long moment.  He stroked her fingers absently and sighed.

            “Was thinkin’ about phonin’ Jean-Luc,” he admitted quietly. “But he don’t need to know about dis shit.  He won’t be cryin’ into his coffee if he hears I ain’t never comin’ back.  He’s never expected me to.  So…” and he drew in a long breath, “…I figured I’d go have one last smoke before de fat lady sings.”

            A smile played across her lips, sad, bittersweet.  She knelt on the bed beside him, put her arms round his neck, kissed his hair.  He said nothing, but he twisted his face into her shoulder, and for a long while they stayed there, locked in this silent embrace.

            “Ah should go and see Raven,” she murmured at last, and he nodded.

            “You go do dat.  I’ll see you topside wit’ Rachel.  ‘Kay?”

            “’Kay.”

            When they pulled apart he couldn’t even look at her.

            He sat there and stared at his hands as she turned and walked away, and when she got to the door he stopped her.

            “Rogue.”

            She halted, turned.

            He was still sitting there facing away from her; but his left hand was outstretched, like he wanted her to take it.

            She couldn’t say no to him.  She went back, put her hand in his.

            His fingers curled over hers, and he drew her towards him slowly; and it was only when she was standing right next to him that he turned towards her, looked at her hand in his own and said quietly, gravely; “I know how it works, Rogue.  I know exactly how.  I can show you, if’n you want.”

            He didn’t qualify the statement, but she knew instinctively what he was talking about.  His powers.  The thing that everything hinged on.  And she realised that until that moment he hadn’t fully been willing to share them with her.  That on some level he’d been afraid of what they might do to her.  Or what she might do _with_ them.

            So she knelt down beside him, and when she did he looked at her, his gaze searching her own intently, perhaps trying to discern just how ready she was.  Her glance didn’t waver and after a moment he looked aside, down at their conjoined hands, splayed his palm against her own.

            “Y’see dis?” he asked her softly; and she nodded wordlessly, not seeing at all.  If his question was a test he didn’t examine her answer.  He accepted it for what it was, continued. “We’re made of _everyt’ing_ , _chere_.  Particles, molecules, atoms. All dis,” and he pressed his hand against hers gently, meaningfully, “I can feel it.  I can _sense_ it.  I can sense all de little t’ings dat make _us_.  I can feel them movin’.”

            He paused and she held her breath, beginning, she thought, to understand.

            “If I look hard enough I can see,” he murmured. “I can see them, Rogue.  All de little parts dat make up Time.”

            His eyes flicked to hers again.  There was gravity in his gaze, but also a sadness.

            “Don’t you see it, _chere_?  I can _move_ these little bits dat make _us_ , dat make _dis_.  Kinetically charge them, split them apart, shuffle them round, put them back together again.”

            He grazed his fingers absently over her own like he relished the texture of them, his mouth twisted into a pensive frown.

            “So,” she finally whispered, breaking the silence, “when Irene said you could remake yourself in time, she meant…?”

            “I t’ink she meant dis,” he spoke softly over the tail end of her unfinished sentence. “I kinetically unanchor myself from time, atom by atom.  I push myself through the Timestream, I reform myself again wherever, _whenever_ , I choose it.”

            A breath lingered, fluttered in her throat.

            “That’s crazy,” she whispered.

            He almost gave a sardonic grin in reply.

            “I know.  But I can do it.  I ain’t done it yet – but I can do it.  I just _know_ , y’know?  But I’ve been too fuckin’ scared to even try it.” He grimaced. “Huhn.  Guess I’m gonna haveta get over dat one pretty quick.”

            She shook her head.

            “You won’t have to.  If Ah absorb you, Ah can do it.”

            His mouth twisted.

            “Dat’s what I’m afraid of.”

            “Why?  Ah’m as much a thief as you are, Remy, in mah own way.  Ah stopped bein’ afraid of other people’s powers a long time ago, sugah.  This is just what Ah do.  Take what’s yours, make it my own.” She gave a half-smile, linked her fingers with his own. “Ah’ll be okay.  Ah always am.  You don’t need to worry…”

            He clasped her hand tight.

            “There’s only so much power you can take, Rogue,” he commented softly.

            “Sinister didn’t seem to think so…”

            He scoffed.

            “Sinister was a lunatic.  I don’t want you t’get hurt.  De only reason I’m tellin’ you all dis now is ‘cos if you ain’t prepared, I dunno what de hell might happen to you…”

            “We’re _all_ riskin’ our lives here, Remy,” she reminded him gently. “I don’t need any special treatment.  Whatever happens happens.  We take it as it comes.” She paused, added as an afterthought: “Although, if we _do_ die… Ah hope you’ve been a good boy, Remy LeBeau.  ’Cos if there’s an afterlife, Ah want you in heaven with me.”

            He gave a humourless laugh.

            “Heaven ain’t where people like me go, _chere_.  But I hope I’ve been good enough to be put wherever you are, Anna.”

            She grinned, stroked his cheeks with both hands.

            “Ah’ll put in a good word for you, sugah.  Ah promise.”

            They kissed, so sweet and intoxicating that it took a primeval effort for him to remove her hands from his face and put them back into her lap.

            “ _Chere_ ,” he muttered apologetically when they broke apart, “if you don’t go right now I swear I ain’t gonna let you leave dis room and de whole world can go to hell.”

She halfway believed him. 

With a small smile she pressed her forehead to his, squeezed his hand once, then got up and left.

 

*

 

            She hadn’t seen Raven for a while now.  She knew her foster mother was angry with her for a whole lot of reasons, but, as she stood outside her door, Rogue knew that she had to do this, even if it hurt badly.  She had her own reasons – justified reasons – for being angry at Raven.  Yet, despite all that, she had never wanted to _hate_ her foster mother.  To the contrary, she _loved_ her.  And that was what kept her coming back to her, through all the bad stuff Raven had put her through.  And it was why she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, even if that sentiment was thrown unceremoniously back into her face.

            She knocked, but didn’t bother waiting for an answer that she knew wouldn’t come.  She pushed open the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind her gently.  When she waited for a greeting, she somehow knew that that would not come either.

            “Ah want to stop this now, Raven,” she said quietly to the form slumped in the chair by the bed. “Ah don’t want to fight anymore.”

            Raven Darkhölme glanced at her as though in a dream.  What Rogue saw was not the woman she had known all her life, the woman who had raised her as her own, nurtured and corrupted her.  She saw instead a broken woman, a woman who had lost everything and lost the will to claw it all back.  The harsh, beautiful face was now white and drawn, the eyes bright and burning in its cold expanse.  Her spindly fingers seemed longer and thinner than before, more agitated.  Mystique, this once formidable force of nature, had been brought to her knees.

            “Fight?” she repeated in voice that was paper thin and yet still held something of its former voracity. “I have nothing left to fight with or for, Rogue.  If you presume that these past few weeks it has been my intention to _fight_ you, my will against yours, then you are mistaken.  You have won.  Leave me.”

            “Won?” Rogue rejoined, confused. “Ah never knew there was anythin’ _to_ win...”

            “Don’t be coy,” Raven shot at her frostily. “For years now you have been fighting me.  Fighting against everything I have taught you, fighting against all the trust and faith Irene and I had put in you.  You never fully believed in Destiny’s prophecies; you were determined to prove them wrong.  You repaid her love, her faith in you, with cynical doubt and sometimes outright rebellion.  And now she is dead.” The finality in those words was given with a tone of dismissal, as though there was nothing left to be said.   But Rogue did not leave.  She was determined to see this through, to be heard.

            “She _chose_ her death,” she contested quietly.  A cold laugh sounded in Raven's throat.

            “Yes.  To the very last her one goal was to save you.  But I am no longer convinced that it was or _is_ worth anything.” And her expression closed in on itself, that icy flame burned out in a moment. “Leave me,” she ordered wearily. “Go back to the life you have made.  Go back to your thief lover, to your pathetic rebellion of two.  I have nothing more to say to you.”

            And she looked away, lips pursed, waiting for her daughter to be gone.  But still Rogue refused to obey.

            “You think you know what Irene wanted,” she persisted in a low voice. “But you don’t, not really.”

            The words got the older woman's attention.  She shot a glare at Rogue that was nothing less than poisonous.

            “Do not _dare_ to presume that _you_ know what Irene wanted!” she spat.

            “Why shouldn’t Ah?” Rogue retorted with growing irritation at her foster mother's determination to block every attempt at reconciliation she made. “Ah absorbed her after all.  Who do you think has been guidin’ me for all this time?  It’s been _her_.  The her in my head.  Leadin’ the way, even after she died.”

            If Raven's face could have possibility turned whiter, it did at that moment.  She stared at Rogue as though she had been slapped across the face, her expression aghast.

            “You’re lying,” she spoke at last in a broken voice.

            “Ah’m not.  And whatever you may think of me, Ah would never torture you with that kinda lie.  She _asked_ me to absorb her; she told me she wanted to show me what it was Ah was fightin’ for, the _end purpose_ she kept talkin’ about.” She paused, knowing that she was digging into the woman before her, that this _was_ a kind of torture, but she couldn’t stop it now, she _needed_ to be absolved of this, she needed to have the truth known. “But she had other reasons for gettin’ me to absorb her,” she added with a certain sullenness. “It was a way of continuing to influence me even when we were apart; even when she was dead.  It was a way of living forever, Ah guess.  Of making and living out her future through _me_.”

            She realised as she came to a halt that anger had been running through her words; her hands were clenched tight at her sides, her fingernails digging into her palms.  It brought to her mind what Irene had told her not so very long ago – not to harbour the grief and loathing that she had allowed to grow inside her for so long; to let go of it, lest it eat her away, body and soul.  So she unclenched her fists with an effort.

            “And you do know that ‘thief’, as you call Remy, was a part of her plan too, don’t you?” she ground onward relentlessly. “That she took him herself to the Thieves Guild to be raised there?  That it was her intent for our paths to cross?”

            “Of course I knew that!” Mystique barked angrily across her. “And no doubt he served his purpose well, in poisoning you and leading you on a path towards the place you stand in now.  Irene knew what he would mean to you, that he would be the one motivating factor to make you do the things we wanted - _needed_ \- you to do!” Her mouth broke into a sneer. “But of course he sought to overstep his bounds, thinking he could cheat Fate, thinking he could lead you onto his own renegade path.  It wasn’t enough for him to sate his lust on you; he wanted to _own_ you, body and soul.  And so he has what he wants now.  I wish him the joy of you, and you of him.”

            All this was said with such rancour that if she had spat at Rogue she would not have been surprised.  And suddenly Rogue felt sorry for her: for her blindness, which, though different, was just as potent as Irene’s had been.

            “Remy wasn’t just a means to an end,” she murmured sadly. “He _was_ an end.  _Is_.  You know it as well as Ah do.  You just don’t want to see it because you despise him.”

            Raven made no admission or denial at this.  She stared out the window once more, the muscle in her jaw working visibly.

            “Anyway,” Rogue began again, seeing that her foster mother was not going to be turned as easily as she had thought, “Ah just thought Ah’d let you know.  That Ah don’t want us to part on bad terms before Ah go.”

            There was a flicker, a movement in Raven’s eyes, but she didn’t say anything and Rogue was forced to continue.

            “We’re goin’ to try and make things right, momma.  Me and Remy and Rachel.  Ah don’t know if Ah’ll be comin’ back, or even if there’ll be anythin’ to come back to.  And if Ah don’t, Ah just wanted you to know that Ah love you, Mystique.  Crazy as that may sound, after all the things you tried to turn me into, that you tried to make me do... Things that Ah hated, that Ah would’ve died rather than do... Ah still love you.  Ah still think of those years when you took me in and gave me a roof over my head, made me feel like Ah was a human being, something worthwhile when everyone and everythin’ else in the world was tellin’ me Ah was dirt.”

            She sighed, looked down at her feet, began again.

            “You and Irene gave me a home and gave me love.  You treated me as your own and Ah’m grateful for that.  No one else ever treated me as their own.  For those few brief years, Ah was happy.  And then you tried to undo everythin’ you’d done for me.  After teachin’ me Ah wasn’t dirt, you _made_ me into dirt.  When all was said and done, Ah became a means to an end for the both of you, nothin’ more.  You can’t deny that, momma.  It’s the truth.”

            Raven looked at her fully then, and Rogue thought she saw the glint of tears swimming in those cold, grey eyes.

            “Ah understand why you did it, momma,” she murmured. “Ah’ve _always_ understood that you made me do what you did because of what you believed in; because of this better world you wanted to create.  Ah fought because Ah never believed that Ah could be nothin’ more than a pawn to the two of you.  Fate was one thing – Ah could never fight something that can’t be seen or fully comprehended.  But Ah could fight one thing, and that was your drive to _use_ me to create the future you desired.”

            Raven would have said something then; but Rogue wasn’t finished.  Really, none of this mattered apart from what she had to say next.

            “But Ah understand somethin’ _else_ now, momma,” she continued, raising her voice a little, trying to be brave enough to get it out. “Ah understand how much it _hurt_ you to do what you did to me.  How difficult it was for you to reconcile what needed to be done with your love for me.  And Ah knew you loved me.  It was just easier for me to believe that you didn’t.”

            She took in a shaky breath, spilling it out again in a heavy torrent.

            “Ah know you probably don’t want to hear this,” she said. “But Ah said it to Irene, and Ah want to say it to you.  Ah forgive you, momma.  Ah can’t hold onto this hurt and resentment anymore.  Ah forgive you.”

            There.  She’d said it.  She didn’t think it would be enough to make amends, but at least she had relieved herself of this burden that she couldn’t carry anymore.  She expected no reply, and when Raven didn’t move to give one, she turned to the door, ready to leave for a final time.

            “Wait.”

            At first she thought she had imagined the word, said in a voice that was hoarse and barely recognisable as Mystique’s.  She turned, expecting that same unforgiving and imperious gaze to be turned her way; but there was something different in Raven’s expression this time - no anger, no hate, but certainly no overt display of affection either.  No - there was something else there, not so much a sense of imploring, but of a steely determination for what must be done; that Rogue had somehow earned some concession at least.

            Rogue stood in the doorway expectantly whilst Mystique rose from her chair and crossed over to the nightstand.  She slid open the drawer and reached for something that she did not have to search long for.  She pulled it out and shut the drawer behind her.  As she turned, Rogue saw that it was a long thin envelope, that she held in her hand with all the tender reverence one would reserve for a family memento  or an heirloom.  She crossed the room to where Rogue stood in the doorway, as if bearing a chalice to a worthy initiate.  Yet her face was staid, devoid of emotion, unable or unwilling to impart whatever meaning this moment held for her.  And Rogue knew that the more devoid of emotion Raven seemed, the more she was feeling.

            “Here,” Raven spoke when she finally stood before her daughter.  She held out the envelope with the air of offering up a holy relic.  Rogue reached out, took it.  What she saw first was her name – her old name, the one she’d jettisoned so many years ago – written in the unmistakable Victorian sprawl that was Irene Adler’s.  The paper was clean and white, though faintly dog-eared at each corner, as though it had been kept in a drawer and jostled against other papers for some amount of time.  There were no other embellishments.  The flap was sealed, intact.

            She turned it over in her hand, once, twice, feeling the texture, the weight of it.  She guessed that it contained no more than a sheet or two of paper – nothing more.

            “Irene intended it for you,” Raven explained what was self-evident from looking at it; her tone was now composed, as finally neutral as though nothing of their former conversation had passed. “She said that if anything happened to her, you were to have it.”

            Rogue understood these words and the implication behind them.  She understood that until that very moment, Raven had intended to go against Irene’s wishes and deny Rogue the only material legacy the old woman had left her.

            “Do you know what’s inside it?” she asked her mother curiously.

            “No,” Raven replied shortly. “It was not my business to know, Rogue.  She only entrusted it to my safekeeping, that I would pass it onto you in the event of her death.  I never presumed to ask her what was in it, and she did not tell me.” Her smile was thin. “Make of that what you will.  I hope that whatever the contents are will give you the peace the two of us could never give you in her lifetime.”

            That was all.  The greatest token of affection Raven would ever pass onto her.  She knew it.  She slipped the envelope inside her pocket and looked up at the woman who had shaped so much of her life, for better or for worse.  And Rogue felt no resentment for that fact.  It was what it was – enough for them to part like this.  No reproaches, no recriminations; but no warm embraces either.

            And she was okay with that.

            “Bye, momma,” was all she said.  And Raven nodded with curt acceptance – the closest thing to a reconciliation both would get.

            “Goodbye, Rogue,” she said.

            And so nothing more was said, and Rogue shut the door quietly on another chapter of her life.

 

*

            There was one last thing to do.

            She didn’t have much time, and so she delved straight on in without planning anything.  No long drawn-out goodbyes, no real explanations.  But she figured she should show her face, at the very least.  The psyches in her head had grown along with her these past few months.  They had shared more of her life than anyone else knew.  They had also helped her more than she’d expressed gratitude for.  It was time for her to pay her dues now.

            It was bright, sunny.  The lake was like mercury under that cloudless sky.  When she turned to the cedar tree, she saw that Irene was there already, waiting for her.

            “Where are the others?” she asked as she approached the shade of her foster mother.

            “Sleeping,” Irene explained with a small smile. “As they always should have been.” She paused, began again. “I’m sorry I took liberties, Rogue.  There was no other way though, to do what needed to be done.”

            Rogue nodded mutely.  She wasn’t inclined to argue about anything at the moment, and besides, her mind was on other things.

            “Gambit—” she began; but Irene seemed to know exactly what she was asking.

            “He’s down there.  By the boathouse, I think.  He’s waiting for you.”

            Rogue nodded again.  She knew exactly where he would be.

            “Well,” she spoke softly on a small sigh, deciding to change the subject. “It worked.  You were right.”

            And Irene smiled gently.

            “I was never right, until it happened.  _You_ made it right, Rogue.”

            “Ah think you deserve more credit than you let on, Irene,” Rogue protested softly, and Irene allowed herself a small laugh.

            “No.  It was all _you_ , Rogue.  It always has been.  I’m just a messenger, an instrument, and _that_ was my Fate.  Don’t be ashamed to take your due.”

            Rogue grimaced.  Even in death, the woman was a complicated mass of riddles.

            “We’re tryin’ somethin’ to make this right again,” she explained after a short silence. “Me and Remy and Rachel.  Each of us on our own, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re plannin’.  Together we stand a much better chance.”

            Irene’s expression was grave.  Her voice as she spoke was even more so.

            “You’re going to try and unmake what was done.  To create an anomaly in time.”

            “Yes,” Rogue returned simply.

            “Then you are here,” Irene concluded softly, “to warn us that it is possible that you may not succeed.  That you may die, and that we will exist no more.”

            Rogue sucked in a breath, exhaled it shakily.  She nodded.

            “Yes.”

            A faint smile touched Irene’s lips.

            “Dear child,” she spoke tenderly, “we are a part of you.  What you face, we face together.  Neither of us have anything more to give you.  You no longer need us.  All that remains to us is this cage, and we have slept here before.  If it is an eternal sleep that awaits us, it shall not hurt us.  And,” she added, the smile on her lips widening, “somehow I do not think that you will die.  What is inside you is too precious.  Be at rest, my daughter.  Everything will be as it should be.”

            “You still believe that?” she questioned, almost disbelievingly. “Even if you can’t see it anymore?”

            “When it comes to you, Rogue, I believe,” Irene replied with conviction. “You have never proved me wrong yet.  You never _will_.”

            She leaned forward, touched Rogue’s face, and kissed her on the forehead with a loving tenderness she had never shown before.  When she pulled away, there was a lump in Rogue’s throat and she swallowed it.

            “If Ah _do_ come out on the other end, Ah’ll let y’all sleep now, momma,” she murmured. “It don’t seem fair to keep you cooped up in here forever…”

            “Yes,” Irene nodded. “Start anew, Rogue.  Start afresh.  But we will always be ready for you, if you need us.”

            “No,” she said gently. “Ah don’t want to _hurt_ you again…”

            “You’ve never hurt us, dear,” Irene cut in softly, but she shook her head with certainty.

            “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.  It never _was_.  Ah never wanted this.  Ah never wanted to bridge this gap.  You’ve… you’ve become _real_ to me.  More than just psyches Ah once absorbed.  You’re _people_.  You have _lives_.  And this… this ain’t right.  It ain’t right for me to _be_ with you like this.  Askin’ for your mem’ries, your powers… Takin’ what I can from you…”

            “It’s how I planned it to be,” Irene told her sombrely.

            “And that’s exactly it.  You came here with a plan, a special kind of awareness; you’re linked to an outside world that you can never see, touch, feel or taste.  That’s wrong.  That’s a special kinda hell.  Ah won’t let you live it.”

            She drew her hand away from Irene’s, looked at her.

            “If Ah don’t get through this, none of this will matter anyhow.  But if Ah do… Ah promise.  No more pain, no more sufferin’.  Ah’ll let y’all sleep.” She glanced at Irene. “Seems kinda strange, doesn’t it?  For once, you’re just mah momma.  You can’t see the future, can’t tell me what to do, can’t keep me safe.  We’re head to head, toe to toe now.  And Ah can’t lie – Ah like it better like this.”

            The old woman’s smile was faint.

            “As do I.”

            She turned to go, thought of something, turned back.

            “By the way,” she spoke to Irene. “Thanks for the letter.”

            And this time Irene’s smile was genuine.

            “You read it?”

            “When Ah get through this,” Rogue replied, turning back again, “Ah’ll read it then.  If Ah don’t… Well then, you can tell me all about it on the other side.”

 

            As Irene had said, Remy was on the boathouse porch, looking out onto the water.

            “Remy,” she greeted him, as she stepped up onto the wooden floorboards.  She felt them creak under the weight.

            “ _Chere_ ,” he returned with his warm slide of a smile.  It was all the invitation she needed.  She stepped up beside him and looked out onto the water too.  She didn’t know what she had been expecting; but when she looked down into the softly lapping waves, she saw their reflections captured there, real and clear as day.

            “Place seems familiar,” she murmured.  His reflection smiled.

            “You remember,” he said.

            “Of course Ah do.”

            They stood there in silence for a long moment, each remembering that moonlit meeting down by the lake so many years ago: her in the white dress and the butterfly pendant; him, waiting for her, right here.    She remembered the wine and the dusky lamplight.  The rhythmic cadence of the inky waters, the scent of the summer.  The heat of her skin beneath the silk opera gloves, the craving she’d had to tear them off and to _touch_ – to touch _him_.  His eyes on hers, the way he’d been honest with her, confessed to her that he’d been scared like she was.

            That vulnerability had placed him where she was.

            And it had, for the first time, allowed her to accept that she was in love with him.

            Now, here after all these years, she realised there was a difference between loving and being in love.  It was a question of depth, a richness of texture she couldn’t even begin to describe.  But it had started _here_ , in this very spot – and she sensed the simple poetry in being here again with him, with this shadow of him who was and yet was not the man she had been in love with then and whom she loved so deeply now.

            “You were so beautiful, _chere_ ,” he broke the silence in a dreamy, far-away tone. “For weeks, for _months,_ I’d been tellin’ myself dat you didn’t mean a t’ing t’ me, dat I could forget you de moment I’d handed you over to Essex.” He paused, his eyes turning to her. “Dis was de place.  Dis was de moment I _knew_.  You came t’ me wit’ all your trust and your love when all I’d planned t’ do was _take_ … And I _knew_.  I knew I couldn’t hurt you.”

            She turned and looked at him full on and he returned her gaze without flinching.

            “If you’d known what I had planned for you then,” he continued quietly, “you would’ve hated me.”

            She shook her head gently.

            “No.  Ah don’t believe you would ever have sold me onto Essex.”

            His mouth twisted.

            “Mebbe.  Mebbe not.  But I swear t’ God, Rogue – if there was a moment I fell for you, if there was a moment I could have admitted to myself dat I had feelin’s for you… It was then.”

            His voice was hoarse.  He was silent for a long moment, gazing down into the water, and when he looked up again it was with a small laugh.

            “And here we are again, _chere_.  Which tells me our insane gamble worked.  You managed to save me and stay alive.”

            “Yes,” she muttered, feeling a sudden breeze sweep aside her hair. “At a price, sure.  But you’re alive.  And so am Ah.”

            He seemed to catch something of her downcast mood.

            “Please tell me dat asshole has come t’ his senses and realised what an amazin’ t’ing he has in you.”

            A shadow of a smile crossed her lips, one that couldn’t hide her happiness; he saw it and read it, loud and clear.  He turned to her, his fingers moving to caress her cheek in that familiar, weightless gesture.

            “I’m glad,” he said, his eyes on hers. “An asshole he may be, but one t’ing I know.  He wants to be wit’ you.”

            She laughed quietly.

            “Don’t bring yourself down, sugah.  You’re a good man.  You’ve tried to fool me, but it ain’t never worked.”

            And this time his smile joined her own.

            “Trust like dat could get you killed, _cherie_ ,” he joked, and she grinned.

            “Or it could steal me the heart of a terminally gorgeous master thief.  Ah know what Ah’d bet on.”

            He laughed with real pleasure.

            “Ah.  So _now_ you’re ready to gamble.”

            She stroked his hand, the hand that still touched her cheek, even though she knew he couldn’t feel it.

            “Of course.  Only when there’s nothin’ left to lose…”

            And the smile slipped from his lips.

            “Knew there was a catch.  Dat bad, huh?”

            “It’s why Ah’m here.” She let go of his hand, and his fingers dropped to her shoulder, toyed with a lock of hair that was curled there.

            “So lemme guess, sweet.  You’re here t’ tell me dat you could die again and…”

            “And you would die with me too?  Yes.”

            The gaze they shared was long, charged.  He broke the moment first

            “Irene said dat you and me – _him_ – might try to undo everyt’ing dat’s been done…” he muttered, and he faltered off, his eyes hard.

            “Are yah gonna try and stop me?” she asked him.

            “Peh!” He looked almost, but not quite, insulted. “I’m a lotta t’ings, _chere_ , but I ain’t stupid enough t’ think I can talk you outta wantin’ t’ save de world.”

            A small laugh escaped from her lips.

            “That’s pretty much what you – on the outside – said t’ me…”

            “Hmph.  Den he ain’t so much of a fool as I thought.” And the insufferable grin came back. “Guess I won’t feel too guilty then, if you choose him over me.”

            It was a joke, and they both knew it – but there was a sadness in his voice that he couldn’t quite hide.  He tugged on the lock of her hair in his hand gently – she didn’t feel it.

            “Well, _chere_ – you said it once before and I’ll say it again.  If it’s your time t’ go we’ll both be out like a light.  It won’t hurt a bit.  But I hope dis ain’t de end.  Not for _us_.  I want t’ take you back here one day, by de lake.  And to Nawlins.  Think you’d like it there.  Besides,” he added, a thread of bitterness lining the humour in his voice, “it’d be nice t’ show you off t’ _mon famille_.  It’d be even nicer to make _mon frere_ insanely jealous when he sees you.”

            She smiled.

            “You’ll get your chance, sugah.”

            He nodded.

            And there was nothing left to say except what she had come here to say.

            “Goodbye, Remy,” she whispered.

            And he stroked her cheeks with both thumbs, smiled.

            “Goodbye, Rogue.”

            She turned and began to walk towards the light, and as she did she heard Remy call to her.

            “I love you.”

            And she looked over her shoulder, said: “Ah know.  Me too.”

            And the light swallowed her up.

 

*


	22. Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue, Remy and Rachel finally head into the Timestream - and while they may be prepared for death, things definitely don’t go according to plan…

##  **PART THREE :** **DESTINY**

            Remy and Rachel were already up on the roof when she got there.

            In the distance S.H.I.E.L.D. helicopters were roaming the skies, and despite the fact that she was wearing Forge’s masking device, she still felt distinctly nervous.

            “Yah sure it ain’t dangerous t’ be up here?” she asked Rachel when she drew closer.  The younger girl passed her a sidelong smile.

            “It’s as safe as I can make it,” came her reply. “I’m shielding our presence.  And if worse comes to worst, at least we have Forge’s disruptors.  Might not be much use though, if we start doing crazy shit with our powers.”

            Rogue frowned.  The more she heard, the less she liked the odds.

            And there was this nagging _feeling_ inside her telling her there was an easier way out, and she didn’t like it.

            It was telling her to finish what Remy (Essex) had started.  It was telling her to just destroy the rest of the Sentinels, the rest of the Hounds, and just have the hell done with it.

            The pull of it was frightening and she stowed it away only with an effort.

            Remy, who’d been standing out on the edge of the roof looking out on the city, turned back and walked over to them.

            “Dontcha worry, Rae,” he commented flippantly. A gust of wind blew up, whipping his coat tails into the air around him. “We get into trouble, I can rearrange their molecules for a bit… send half of ‘em back t’ de past and de other half into de future.  Would be kinda interestin’ to see de results, don’t you think?”

            Rachel raised an eyebrow at him.

            “Technically you could stall time for us whilst we figure out how to make a quick get-away,” she pointed out.  The smile he gave in reply was almost completely feral.

            “ _Oui_.  But you gotta admit – my idea sounds more interestin’.”

            Rachel made a rude face and turned away.  Remy, completely unaffected, smiled and turned to Rogue, drawing an arm about her shoulder.

            “Keep t’inkin’ we should’ve figured out a way to avoid all dis savin’-de-world bullshit by now, _chere_.”

            “You know you love it, Cajun,” she returned distractedly, watching on as the copters in the distance suddenly began to disperse like a frightened flock of blackbirds. “B’tween the hustlin’ and the whorin’, this kinda thing is like honey to yah.”

            He gave something between a grin and a grimace.

            “Between this and the hustlin’ and whorin’, I know what I’d rather be doin’.” The grimace turned into an all-out grin. “I even know who I’d rather be doin’ it _with_.”

            She levelled him a glance that tried to be outraged but didn’t quite work.

            “Don’t yah _ever_ stop?”

            He shrugged, almost helpless.

            “ _Non_.  ‘Specially not before a suicide mission.”

            He paused, seeing the discontented look on her face, and he stepped in close to her, his palms coming up to cradle her cheeks. “What’s on your mind, _chere_?” he whispered. “You still t’inkin’ about changin’ your mind?  When we’ve got dis far?”

            She gazed at him without flinching.

            “Would you change your mind, Remy?” she asked him straight.

            He blinked.  He said nothing.

            “’Cos it ain’t too late t’ turn back…” she reminded him softly; but he shook his head with a wry smile.

            “Dis is better.  No more runnin’.  No more playin’.”

            She swallowed, nodded, looking so forlorn that he couldn’t help but dip his head to hers and whisper, “I’m stayin’ wit’ you, _chere_.  I promise.”

            She raised her eyes to his, wordless – _those eyes_ – and it seemed the most natural thing in the world – they kissed.

            “Hey guys,” Rachel interrupted them with a strain of urgency in the background, “we’ve got company.”

            They pulled apart, Remy with just a little more reluctance than she thought strictly noble, but she knew he wasn’t really in this for the accolades anyway.  Well, maybe not _entirely_ anyhow.  When they joined Rachel at the edge of the roof they saw not one, not two, but three Sentinels heading in their general direction.

            “ _Shit,_ ” Remy swore under his breath. “Looks like you were right, _p’tit._ Knock ‘em down, they just keep comin’.” He passed Rachel a sidelong glance. “You sure Tanya was tellin’ you de truth?  Dat de Sentinels just keep replicatin’ when you take ‘em out?”

            “Yeah,” Rachel nodded, her mouth twisted into a grimace. “I’m pretty certain she wasn’t lying.  _Shit_ ,” she hissed when the Sentinels didn’t stop or turn away. “Looks like they’re headed this way.  Can’t you hold them off, Gambit, till we’ve _done_ this?”

            He considered it.

            “Freezin’ them ain’t de problem.  I can do it, but only for as long as I ain’t usin’ my other powers.  I won’t be able to do it whilst Rogue’s absorbin’ me neither.  And I _definitely_ won’t be able to hold ‘em back once we’re in the Timestream.”

            They stood a moment, waiting, expecting the Sentinels to wander off in another direction.  But they didn’t.  They just kept on heading their way.  Rachel swore again.

            “Buy us some time, Gambit,” she ordered. “We should be able to get this over with before they make it down here.”

            Remy stepped forward, ready to do what he had to – but Rogue shot out a hand, catching his wrist, holding him back, saying, “ _No_.”

            Her tone was unusually calm, authoritative – so much so that both Remy and Rachel glanced at her and saw that she wasn’t looking at them at all.  Her gaze was also in the direction of the slowly advancing Sentinels, but her expression was grave, her brow furrowed.

            “What is it, _chere_?” Remy asked, lowering his voice, expertly reading her troubled countenance with barely even a second glance.

            Rogue shook her head abstractly, her hand still about his wrist.

            “It’s crazy, but Ah can’t shake it.”

            “Can’t shake what?”

            She couldn’t answer.  She squinted as she stared out over the horizon, seeing those silent, featureless faces glinting in the sunlight, the Sentinels advancing, implacable soldiers from some undead army.

            “ _They’re coming for us_ ,” she murmured on a sickening surge of realisation; and, before she could compute another thought, she had turned and was running back towards the elevator at breakneck speed.

            “What de fuck, Rogue—?!” Remy shouted behind her, and she swivelled, still running backwards across the gravel, called back, “They’re comin’ for _us_ , Remy!  We haveta warn the others!”

            “ _What_?!” was all Rachel could expel, but he was already half following her, half hesitating, his face caught between disbelief and dismay.

            “How de hell you know dat, _chere_?!” he called; but she didn’t have time to answer – she couldn’t shake the certainty of what she knew, what she could _see_ , swimming in and out of her peripheral vision… She skidded to a stop in front of the elevator and stabbed the down button; but nothing happened – someone else had used the lift, and it was now at the bottom floor.

            “ _Damn!_ ” she hissed, just as Remy had caught up to her, breathless.

            “How do you _know_?” he asked her again, fearful, urgent – and she knew that whatever his misgivings, he believed her.

            “Ah dunno.  Ah just do.  Don’t ask me, Remy.  Ah can’t explain it.”

            She punched at the down button again agitatedly – no reaction.

            “ _Shit!_ ”

            “ _Chere_ ,” he began with an effort at forcing composure, just as Rachel came up behind them. “Listen t’ me.  We don’t have time for dis.  We haveta do what we haveta do _now_.  Sure they might be comin’ here to cause a ruckus but—”

            “You don’t understand!” she cut him off desperately, still punching at the down button. “They’re comin’ _here_.  To _us_.  _For_ us.  _Right now_.  We won’t have time to hold them off whilst we’re in the Timestream.  We haveta warn the others!”

            “ _Jesus_ …” Rachel interjected on a breath, and:

            “Rogue—” Remy said, in a voice that told her he was going to continue reasoning with her – she didn’t have time for it.

            “It’s Irene,” she explained flatly. “Her powers.  Kickin’ in.  Ah can see the future.  Ah can see… whatever the fuck is _here_!” And she waved her hand at the shadows gathering in on the left side of her, seeing for the first time how strange and haunting the lower level manifestations of Destiny’s powers really were.  The elevator _still_ wasn’t there and she was done with waiting.  She turned and went for the maintenance stairs.

            “Rogue – Anna!” Remy was right behind her, breathless, as she threw the door open to the stairwell. “Are you _sure_ ‘bout dis?”

            “ _Yes!_ ” she hollered back at him.

Somewhere behind her she heard Rachel yelling that the lift had arrived, but it was too late – she was committed to this route now, already plunging down into the darkness, her feet rattling down the metal stairs and her breath belaboured, the ghosts of the future swirling in and out of her vision as she clattered down two, three, four steps at a time, matching the hoarse bursts of breath crashing through her throat and—

            “I thought Destiny couldn’t see up to dis point!” Remy’s voice echoed not that far behind her; and she was surprised to realise that he had followed her down the steps.

            “She couldn’t!” Rogue threw back with the little air still blasting through her lungs. “She couldn’t see past my death and _your_ choice!  But we’re past that point, Remy!  And Ah can see through her eyes now!  Ah can see enough to know Ah’m right!”

            “You’re makin’ it sound,” he panted, only half a flight behind her, “like someone’s gone an’ betrayed us again!”

            “Ah think you might be right,” she shot back at him over her shoulder; and no sooner had they got to the next corner than he had boxed her right into it, pinning her against the wall with his body, his eyes blazing.

 _“Who?_ ” he grunted, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts; but she shook her head distractedly, unable to penetrate the gloom...

            “Ah can’t see that, Remy,” she answered, the oxygen burning like ice in her throat; and he cursed, his body heaving against hers as he tried in vain to catch his breath.

            “We should walk, Rogue,” he muttered, more to himself, she thought, than to her. “We should walk right now...  Tell me it’s what you want...”

            Their eyes locked, and for a horrible, beautiful moment, neither one could tear their gaze from the other...

            And that was when they heard the Hound scream.

            Only instinct drew him away from her, and before she could even think to breathe again he had already moved, whisking away like a dervish with his coat tails slapping noisily behind him. 

            “Remy!”

            He said nothing – but she heard a slick _shuck_ in the near distance, saw the glint of his quarterstaff extending again, and in a trice she was right behind him again, relieved beyond words that he wasn’t abandoning them.

            They both hit the bottom floor at the very same moment, Remy flinging open the door into the main complex, pausing only to let her through first with an overly flamboyant flourish.

            The typically outrageous moment was only ruined by the unmistakable _rumblerumblerumblerumble_ of a Sentinel somewhere too close for comfort.

            “Where de fuck is Rachel?” she heard him mutter as she stepped past him and into the passageway; and, as if on cue, Rachel herself skidded round the nearest corner, coming to a juddering halt when she saw them.

            “What the hell took you so long?!” she barked at them, not even waiting for an answer. “Logan’s already rallying the troops and calling in the defences!  They’re gonna buy us some time while we do what we gotta do!”

            “And if they don’t make it...?” Rogue trailed off.

            “If we don’t do what we’ve gotta do, that won’t matter anymore – none of this will!” Rachel broke off, staring them down, looking at them like she’d been here before, and that this time she was going to do things _right_ , even if it killed her.

            Remy opened his mouth and what came out was nothing but the sound of doors splitting, metal creaking and concrete caving in.  Before he could clamp it shut again, Rachel was already halfway back down the corridor.

            “Follow me!” she screamed.

            And that was when they heard the screams of a Hound join hers, echoing ominously over their shoulders and about their ears.  Wherever it was, it wasn’t too far away, which was enough of a prompt for them to follow.

            A warren of corridors seemed to stretch out between them and oblivion, and Rogue urged herself onwards with only the barest awareness that she was doing so.  She heard tables overturning; the shouts of Logan behind a steel door, the uncompromising orders of a man who’d done this a thousand times before, the confident replies of those who trusted him with their lives.  Her mind went involuntarily – fleetingly – to Raven; Raven, who she knew would be by his side.  She didn’t have time for the indulgence, and the thought fluttered down into an abyss and flittered somewhere far away.

            When they rounded another corner they heard the unequivocal _pitter patter_ of claws on concrete, and they knew that they had been scented – that now they were the inescapable prey of a Hound.

            No one said a word, no one looked back.

            To outrun a Hound was an impossibility; to look it in the eye was to invite a brutal death, no matter how long it took coming.

            Rogue had no idea where they were headed – it was only when Rachel dove into a certain door that she realised they were piling into the girl’s bedroom – no time for small talk – they did what each of them were thinking – chairs, tables, the desk, the end of her bed – they shoved it all up against the doorway, and – _WHUMP!_ – there it was, the sound of a solid body literally throwing itself against the brittle steel; the entire wall shook with the force.

            “Way t’ fuckin’ go!” Remy grunted, shoving his body weight up against the barricade in an attempt to keep whatever was on the other side out. “Now we’re sittin’ ducks trapped in here!”

            “It’ll buy us some time!” Rachel hollered back, shoving a box of tools onto the pile. “Time to see this _done!_ ”

            “Girl,” Remy shouted back over the unrelenting din of the Hound slamming against the door, “dis shit is gon’ last ‘bout as long as _you_ are once – _if!_ – we ever get outta dis fuckin’ mess!”

            _BAM BAM BAM_ and _CRASH!_

            The door exploded off its hinges and hit the back wall; the barricade crumpled like child’s bricks.

            The Hound shot like a bullet into the room – male, this one – panting, frothing at the mouth with unappeased bloodlust.  It’d hardly stepped a foot in before it was engulfed in a sudden ball of fire, howling, screaming and twisting in terror and agony as it was eaten alive by the flames, its screeches dying out only slowly before slumping to the floor in a charred and blackened heap.

            Neither Rogue nor Rachel had a moment to fully appreciate what Remy had done – from the shocked look on his face, neither did he.  Before anyone could get a word out, another Hound leapt right over the smouldering body of the first, barrelling into Gambit and slamming him, winded, to the ground.  And Rogue knew – from the residue of Rachel’s memories – exactly and in minute detail, how a Hound tore apart its prey.

            It was opening enough.

            Without a moment’s rational thought she surged forward as the Hound pounced, and in what must’ve been madness she tackled it, threw it to the ground with a sudden and hidden wellspring of raw power that was – whose?  Hank’s…?  A flurry of wild, clawing limbs, and somewhere inside the tumult she felt skin on skin, and it was more than adrenaline – it was second nature – she _pulled_.

            It crashed over her head like toxic waste, black and slimy as an oil slick – compressed memories, shattered, fragmented, fossilised, denied; twisted into something ugly and alien and all-encompassing, a cloud of smog descending, polluting the painstakingly-wrought structure of her mind.

            She screamed, she flailed inside it, fought to surface from this irrevocable trauma that was not her own…

            And suddenly, she was through on the other side, standing over the bloodied, unconscious body of the Hound whose blotted memories she had stolen.  It took her another few seconds to realise that both Remy and Rachel were holding her back, that the air was thick with the metallic stench of blood… that her hands were covered in the gore and mire of her foe.

            The only sound in the room was that of her own ragged breathing.

            “Anna?” Remy spoke, and it was the unintended nervousness to his voice rather than its softness that drew her back into herself.  She heaved in a long, quivering breath; the fevered baying of the Hound retreated only reluctantly to the back of her mind.

            “Ah’m fine,” she whispered with just a hint of firmness.  She wiped her sticky palms up her thighs shakily before adding darkly, “There’ll be more soon.”

            As if on cue, there was the familiar _crash_ of a Sentinel peeling back roofs and smashing through walls somewhere far too close for comfort.

            There was no more time to waste.  Shrugging off Remy and Rachel’s grasp, she swung round and strode forwards, ignoring the background rush of _hurtmaimkillkillkill_ that the Hound in her head was still singing. Her hands grabbed theirs as she passed, guiding them into the darkest corner of the room.  The freshly assimilated Hound mind had given her _some_ sort of an edge – a cold-blooded urgency, a steely resolve.  Where before she had been unsure, uncertain of the extent of her own powers, now they felt like pure second nature.  She knew _exactly_ what she had to do now, and the onward march of the Sentinel right outside their paltry haven merely beat out the rhythm of her own inner conviction.

            “You haveta trust me,” she levelled at them over the tumult of the approaching Sentinel outside, exactly like she was issuing a challenge. “Do you trust me?”

            Remy’s exhalation was practically audible.

            “D’ya haveta _ask_?” he queried incredulously, and the smile she passed him was fierce.

            “No, Ah guess Ah don’t.” She glanced at Rachel. “Rae?”

            There was a split second of hesitation that spoke volumes – of memories of mistrust and betrayal welling to the surface.  She bit them back, her lips going hard.

            “Yes,” she breathed.

            “Good.” Rogue clasped their hands tight, drew them in closer. “Strap on your seat-belts, kiddies.  This is gonna feel a little _weird_.”

            She closed her eyes, concentrated.  Ignored the screeching cacophony of screams and metal and rubble; the wailing of more Hounds; the inevitable advance of a Sentinel only a corridor away.  She could’ve asked Remy to use his powers to hold their aggressor back, to buy them more time – but she knew it was impossible, dangerous even, to leech him of his powers whilst he used them.  Especially when she knew how much this would hurt.

            She let out a breath, an elongated susurration of sound that filled the room like a balloon leaking air.  Her mind touched once more upon Raven – _focus_ – and slowly, cautiously, she _drew in_ rather than _pulled_.  Reeled in, like the seductress she’d once played at being.

            She heard a sharp gasp blast from Remy’s lips, and she realised – this was the first time he’d _felt_ her absorb him.  She didn’t have the luxury of going easy on him; but she was as gentle as she could be, siphoning off their powers with all the attentive care of unravelling threads from a bolt of silk, one strand in one hand, one in the other… Teasing, tugging, cajoling them inward – Rachel, slick and cold as liquid mercury; Remy, thick and warm as running blood.

            Slow, sure, measured, she built up the pace, feeling their powers flood into her, first a trickle, then a rivulet, a stream, a tide… And she fed it right back at them, amplifying it psionically, round and round, down and down, faster and faster till she felt like she was spiralling through a whirlpool with the energy thrumming through her veins, making her skin prickle and her hairs stand on end, filling her up until she was barely human anymore – nothing more, nothing less than a glowing ball of energy, fit to burst with the raw power now pulsing inside her.

            “ _Rogue_!” she heard Remy call her name in a tight gasp, and her eyes fluttered open to see, to her dismay – the Sentinel was already outside the broken doorway, its colossal hand reaching in towards them in something like slow motion…

            The combined powers of Rachel and Gambit were still swirling round her, and impulsively she drew them in, measuring each moment in split seconds, one skipping frantically to the other as she tried desperately to work out something she’d never used before, not on this level, not on this scale and—

            She saw Remy raise his free hand, white with light, showing her, guiding her, spreading his palm into the space before them, a space now shining faintly, almost imperceptibly, like the threads of—

            Time.

            It was the Timestream.

            And he was showing her how to move _through_ it.

            As subtle and deft and easy as every card trick he played.

            And she reached out with her thoughts, nervous, tentative, trying to copy him, seeing with her mind how he did it and—

            _Oh.  Wait.  That simple, huh?  Ah don’t need t’ work it out.  Ah can_ see _it.  The Timestream runs through us all the time and all Ah haveta do is_ —

            Tweak a bit here, twist a bit there. 

Molecules shimmered and danced before her eyes and coalesced into a scintillating, vibrant tapestry of intertwined and thrumming cords.  She didn’t even have to reach out and touch them.  She shifted them with her mind, prodding them quickly, deftly, strumming their kinetic potential into life, making them hum and sing and vibrate in time to her skilful ministrations, and – _there ­_ – the doorway was opened – she shot off a thought and for a fraction of a millisecond the three of them were nothing more than misaligned atoms, shot apart from their anchors by an infinitesimally small kinetic charge… Another surge and she pushed them forward through that open doorway and – _voila! –_ the charge drawn in, the atomic spin reversed – and they opened their eyes, not to the shadow of a Sentinel hand descending upon them, but…

To a glimmering river of finely wrought threads hurtling down towards…

            …The very nexus of Time itself.

            Nothing more, nothing less.

 

            Rogue held an involuntary breath.

            She had felt it, once.  Now she could see it, a crystalline waterfall that words could not describe, a field of gold through which an unknown breeze whisked like the tide, an endless tapestry of iridescent threads, the fabric of the cosmos, the loom upon which all the monstrous weight of the universe had been fashioned, stitch by stitch and moment by moment, almost mechanical in its unrelenting precision, onwards, onwards, implacably onwards……

            This was it.

            The Timestream.

            More than humanity itself could fathom: and she felt it then – she felt it.

            It would have crushed her; but she felt Remy’s hand twitch in hers and somehow that started her into herself; Rachel’s palm was still and warm, solid and comforting as a rock.  Rogue squeezed it.  Until that moment she hardly knew she had been breathing.

            “This is…” she whispered in a voice that nevertheless seemed painfully omnipresent; and she saw (or felt) Rachel nod, heard (or felt) her say, “The Timestream?  _Yes_.”

            There was wonder in her – wonder and fear.  Wonder at the beauty of it.  Fear at the terror it instilled.  She stepped forward as if wading into water; when she did so she felt only the slightest resistance, the push of water against feet.  She was aware of Rachel and Remy – her hands still in theirs, the pulsing of their presence – yet despite their closeness they felt an eternity away.  In the scintillating brightness of the Timestream she saw movements, shadows darting in and out of shadows, between the starry currents of the eternal waterfall.  She squinted, holding back an almost irresistible urge to reach out into the flow and touch what she saw, to catch those dancing fireflies.

            Fireflies?

            No.

            Butterflies.

            Butterflies traversing the torrents of Time.

            Just out of reach.

            Coming together, coalescing.  Fusing and melding and merging together until – _what? –_ she realised that the shadows were really _one_ shadow, a figure, running towards her from a great distance, a journey that had lasted eons.

            A female figure.

            A girl tripping out of the waters of the Timestream, phantom-like, a golden ghost with a cascade of unruly hair tumbling around her shoulders, brazen green eyes and an insolent mouth now contorted with pain and fear and horror… It was a look she recognised.  The look of a girl who’d just killed a man.

            The look of a girl who’s seen a piece of her soul chipped away and can’t understand it.

            A sound formed in Rogue’s mouth.

            Something between a strangled cry and an anguished groan.

            It barely came out.

            She watched on, paralysed with a sickening kind of horror as her thirteen year-old self ran towards her, away from the dead and staring Cody – unseeing, unknowing, oblivious – towards Destiny, towards Mystique, towards her adult self and…

            And right through her.

            Her own words hovered around her like suspended raindrops, spiralling round her head with sickening clarity…

            … _if Ah ever let you get close t’ me like Ah let Cody get close t’ me, Ah’d kill you.  Just like Ah killed Cody…_

            Rogue gasped as if struck with a knife, with a bullet… No wound had ever injured her more than the moment her past self stepped through her.  Swift and incisive as an executioner’s sword she felt it – the most awful and final judgement that could be passed.  Everything seemed to impact upon itself, like the world flattening, stretching itself thin, rebounding into a pinpoint smaller than a single molecule… And she felt her knees buckle, stars burst behind her eyes, her vision tunnel and her ears screech and her lungs constrict, and then—

            “ _Rogue!_ ”

            Her name cut across the white noise and the static; and the first thing she saw was Rachel – Rachel’s face, calm, contained, determined.

            She had slapped Rogue across the face.

            The Timestream had gone.

            And everything was white.

            “I saw—” she began to say; but Rachel cut her off, nodding.

            “I know,” was all she said grimly.

            She turned aside and Rogue realised Remy was still there beside her, holding her hand.  He was looking at her with a kind of studied expressionlessness.

            She knew then that he had seen something too.

            Rachel was walking away from them, glancing around into the nothingness.  No – not nothingness.  Nothingness was black.  This was _somethingness_.  It was pure white and boundless.

            “Where are we?” Rogue asked into that infinite silence.

            Rachel stopped and looked at her.  She didn’t look scared.  She didn’t look concerned.  But she did look mildly confused.

            “I’m not sure,” she replied after a moment.  Her glance turned quizzical. “I thought _you_ brought us here.”

            “Me?”

            Rogue was surprised at that – but Rachel gave her a wry smile, saying: “ _You_ were the one who was channelling our powers, Rogue.  You even made it seem _easy._ I kinda figured you knew what you were doing.”

            Rogue gave no reply.  Wherever they were it wasn’t her doing – not consciously anyhow.  Something _else_ had brought them here; she had felt the weight of its touch pass over her the moment the phantom of her past self had collided with her – a cleaving, a _judgement_ … …

            Remy’s hand had slipped from hers.

            He took a step, two steps into the whiteness, paused, turned.  There was almost – but not quite – a smile on his face.

            “Well, if dis is what heaven’s like,” he murmured softly, mostly to himself, “den dyin’ ain’t so bad after all...”

            _Had_ they died?  Was it the hand of God that had touched her and found a killer?

            _Not God_ , a voice suddenly spoke from both within and without – the voice of suns and stars and the Milky Way. _At least, not the one you are thinking of._

            Rogue started at the voice, thinking at first that it had come from within her; but when she saw the expression on the others, she realised that they had _all_ heard it.

“Who are you?” she gasped, just as Rachel cut in, slowly, calmly; “Where are we?”

            There was a heartbeat of silence, and then;

            _You are in the White Hot Room.  A place where gods come to die and be reborn._

            Rogue felt Rachel slide a glance in her direction, then in Remy’s.  When she next spoke it was without any false bravado.

            “We are not gods.  Why bring us here?”

            The voice laughed, a laugh that shimmered as bright and golden as the Timestream itself.

            _No, you are not.  Killers, all… But not gods._ The voice seemed amused.

            “That doesn’t answer my question,” Rachel rejoined, still calm, still even – but Rogue could hear a suggestion of fear in her voice, a light tremor that she could not disguise.

 _You are here,_ the voice answered patiently, _because you, child of men, called; and I, mother of stars, answered_.  There was a pause, one that not even Rachel could think to fill. _I heard your cries,_ the voice continued lightly, _your pleas for help.  You are not the first.  I do not suppose you will be the last.  I brought you here so that I may hear you better.  I hear you now, children.  The disquiet in your souls.  Here, in the confluence of Time – one of many – there is nothing that can be hidden.  You are wide open.  And I know what you are._

            The last was said with such quiet gravity that Rogue knew that it spoke no lie – nothing had been concealed from it – god or no, this thing had judged them, and it had judged them killers.

            “Then you know why we’ve come,” Remy spoke up softly, in a tone more humble than Rogue had ever heard from him.

            _Perhaps,_ said the voice with a disembodied smile. _I have been searching for you – expecting you – for a long time.  The why is of little matter_.

            All felt, instinctively, that the words were addressed to Rachel, who, for the first time, looked truly puzzled.

            “Why?” she could not help but ask.

            There was no answer; but from the whiteness something suddenly spilled into the emptiness, like the light giving birth – a human figure, curled up like an embryo, tumbled into existence, encased in an egg of translucent gossamer-like filaments.  It was a female form, its one distinguishing feature the mass of waxy brown curls that crowned her head.  Rogue recognised her instantly.

            It was Tanya Trask.

            “What did you do to her?” Rachel asked, this time unable to hide her fear, dismay, trepidation – things they all felt but could not bear to voice before this _thing_ that each knew could strike them dead in an instant.  But they had nothing to lose; and when the voice answered, it was sober.

            _I did nothing_.  _Protected her, mostly from herself.  I thought she was_ you _, at first.  But I soon realised my mistake.  I brought her here from the Timestream to heal her.  But I’m not sure that is possible._

            The voice seemed almost – but not quite – sad.  The sound of it seemed to touch Tanya.  Locked inside her crystalline shell, she shuddered and sobbed like a child.

            “I told daddy,” she whimpered, twisting this way and that, trying to hide her face, her shame from them. “I told him where to find you all…”

            Rogue heard a sort of growl reverberate in the back of Rachel’s throat – the girl started forward, fists bunched, reining herself in only with an effort.

            “ _You_ ,” she hissed. “You betrayed us.  _Again_.  _Why_?”

            There was no answer.  Tanya curled in on herself once more and wept softly.

            And again that disembodied voice spoke.

            _You should not judge her too harshly,_ it stated pityingly.  _All she has left are her petty vengeances._

            “Who _are_ you?” Rachel repeated what Rogue had asked at the very start – and this time there was frustration in her voice.  Again, there was no reply; but the space beside Tanya’s egg shifted, unfolded, like a curtain peeling back to reveal —

            A man – blond-haired, blue-eyed, tall and pale-skinned – and undeniably _human_.

            Rogue did not recognise him, but the sharp gasp that passed from Rachel’s lips signalled that she did.  The step she took back was almost involuntary.

            “You’re not real,” she spoke in a strangled voice; but the man smiled placidly.

            “Aren’t I?” he said in a voice that was warm, open – again, _human_. “You sense me, you see me – I am real.”

            Rachel regained the step she had taken back.  Her face had drained of all colour.

            “You’re not Franklin,” she whispered hoarsely. “You’re not _him_.”

            “Is it so hard to believe?” he asked quietly, sadly. “That I have a purpose, beyond my life and my death?  The answer’s simple, Rae – it was to teach you love, to teach you tenderness.  As with the mother, so with the daughter… So you must learn to love, to lose, to hate.  So you must be complete.”

            Rachel was shaking, not with fear, but with anger – Rogue reached out and touched her arm, but the girl shrugged her aside, crying; “ _How dare you_!  How _dare_ you use his voice, his face…!”

            “I am the man you loved,” said Franklin stolidly; and Rachel raised her fist, swung it at him, screamed;

            “ _Stop reading my mind!_ ”

            _Thud_.

            Her fist hit his chest – solid flesh and bone.

            Rachel stared at it, aghast.

            “You’re not real,” she whimpered in futile denial.

            And he touched her hand in a gesture that was so full of compassion and love that she couldn’t help it – tears sprang to her eyes.

            “You need to get past this, Rae,” he told her, gently, solemnly. “You need to get past my death, past your guilt.  You need to stop trying to find me in the Timestream, to see beyond your pain and your hurt and realise the truth – that _I never left you_.”

            “How…?” Barely a whisper…

            He made no answer, but pressed her palm against his chest, his heart – and Rachel gave a sickened gasp as her hand sank into his breast, her fingers sliding into his flesh with all the slow inevitability of quicksand… But she stood transfixed, closer than she had ever dreamed it was possible to be connected to another human being, to _him_ … feeling his heartbeat between her fingertips, warm and liquid and visceral and _human_ …

            He held her gaze for a long, terrible moment, and then—

            _WHOOSH!_

            He went up in flames like something from a horror movie, and she screamed, snatching her hand back, turning instinctively from the flames _even though there was no heat and it did not burn_ , and … … she clawed at the flames, feeling _nothing …_ no body, no flesh, no ash, not even dust and—

            _WHOOM!_

She was knocked onto her backside by the blast as whatever was left of him was incinerated in a whirling conflagration.  Rachel covered her eyes and gulped in hot air.  When she looked up again it was to find that Franklin had gone and in his place was… …

 

            “Jean Grey,” Rogue whispered.

            Jean Grey.

            Rachel stared up at her with her mouth agape.  She seemed to be screaming but no sound came out.  Instead a low, stifled kind of a groan came from her lips, and when it formed into a word all she said was, “Mom?”

            And the red-haired woman smiled.

            “Hi, hon.”

            Two simple words and it was entirely the right thing to say – Rachel threw herself at her mother’s feet and wept like a little child.

            Rogue took a step forward, wanting instinctively to connect with Rachel in the way she once had so long ago, to comfort her; but she felt Remy’s hand on her shoulder, a simple touch warning her to stay back.  She obeyed, but only because she sensed that for the girl in front of them both she and Remy had pretty much ceased to exist anyway.

            Instead of Rogue it was Jean who leaned forward and put her arms round her, ran her fingers soothingly through her hair. 

            “It’s all right,” she crooned soothingly, and the voice was undeniably that of the woman Rogue had once known. “It’s all right, dear.  There’s no need to cry.  Everything will be right as rain.  I _promise_.”

            For a long while there was no sound in the White Hot Room but for the soft weeping of the daughter, reunited with her mother for the first time in over ten long years.

            “You are the Phoenix,” Rogue murmured, suddenly understanding.

            And the eyes of Jean Grey flicked up at her, green, serene.

            “Yes.  And no.”

            The words seemed to remonstrate with Rogue, to chide her for ruining a perfect moment.  Jean looked down at her still sobbing daughter and continued to stroke her hair.

            “I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time, my dear,” she said softly. “You have no idea how long.”

            Rachel stirred as if roused from a slumber.  She looked up from the dip of her mother’s shoulder and gazed up at her with tremulous eyes.

            “You were Franklin a moment ago.  How do I know it’s really you, mom?”

            Jean smiled sadly.

            “Yes – I suppose you _would_ question.  I questioned too, myself.  The hardest thing in the world is to face the immortal cosmos, to _believe_ in it.” Her eyes went to Rogue’s again. “You’re right.  I _am_ the Phoenix.  But I am also Jean Grey.  The truth is, I have always been her and she has always been me.  A piece of me, scattered and seeded through Time.  We waited to be made whole again, just as we’ve waited for this moment for all those years spent here, healing.” She looked down at Rachel once more, cupped her cheeks in her hands. “You wore the earring I gave you, dear.” She smiled faintly, nostalgically, as she noticed the stud in her ears – a single red star that even now still glittered like blood drops in the crystalline light. “Your dad didn’t really want you to get them till at least a year later… But I insisted.  I’m glad I did.  They suit you.”

            She said nothing more, but stood, Rachel staring at her, wide-eyed and speechless.  Rogue saw that if she had disbelieved her before, she believed her implicitly now.  This was her mother.  This was Jean Grey.  No doubt about it.

            “You were right too,” the red-haired woman said gravely, turning to Remy. “I know what it is you’re here for.  I know what it is you want to do.  I brought you here because your plan is foolish.  What you wish to do cannot be done.”

            “And you know dis how?” Remy questioned, a note of irritation edging into his voice despite where he was and who he was faced with.  Jean grinned wryly.

            “Time is malleable, but it is not fluid – not exactly.  _You_ know what it is to move it, Remy LeBeau, don’t you?  To mould the future as it comes is one thing.  To remake the past in order to remake the future… _That_ is another.  All the threads of Time intersect, but they all run one way, and that is forward.  The arrow of Time is not so easily turned aside.  What it has woven is not so easily destroyed.  Rend a hole in its fabric and you risk unravelling _everything_ that has been done.”

            “But I have the power to change it,” Remy persisted doggedly. “I can _do_ it.”

            Jean glared at him.  Her expression was dark.

            “You have the power to remake _yourself_ in Time,” she retorted sombrely. “To be _embodied_ at any and _all_ points in the Timestream. But you don’t have the power to remake _it_.  Not _all_ of it anyway.  Not without killing yourself from the sheer effort.”

            “But it’s _possible_ …”

            “Possible.” The grin she gave him was almost devilish. “But you are not _immortal_ , Remy LeBeau, powerful though you are.  _None_ of you are.  Not even with all your powers combined.  But…”

            She paused, and glanced back, first at the still curled up form of Tanya, then at Rachel, who had staggered slowly to her feet.  She seemed uncertain.

            “But _you_ can do it,” Rachel intoned softly.  Jean nodded reluctantly.

            “Given enough power – yes – it is possible.”

            “So it can be done,” Rachel murmured, half to herself.

            “It can be done,” Jean nodded. “But for a price.”

            “Heh,” Remy’s tone was rueful. “Poppa’s first rule o’ de game – not’ing worthwhile ever comes free.”

            Jean looked at him imperiously.

            “Even the immortal, even the cosmic is not permitted to change what has passed.  But there are ways to affect the _future_ , if one could be embodied in the past... And I can give you that power, if you were to give me something first.”

            “And what would that be?” Rachel queried quietly.

            And Jean passed her an empty smile, saying, “What will you _give_?”

            There was a pulse of silence that lasted half a breath too long, before Rogue impulsively asked:

            “What will you _take_?”

            Jean looked at her as though for the first time.  The glance was penetrating, incisive, burning with an almost glacial fire.  There was no rage, no displeasure – merely the look of someone finally faced with something curious… _interesting_.  Rogue felt that glance bore into her, deep and unforgiving as a javelin through her breast, piercing into the depths of her soul – but she refused to flinch.  As the Phoenix burrowed inside her she sensed pain – indescribable though not unendurable – a pain beyond mere words, a pain beyond mortality.  It was the agony of her soul being prised open, its shell being peeled away layer by fragile layer.  It was not physical, it was not mental, but it was _other,_ and she felt it like a hole in her heart.  It reached down into the depths of her and pulled out everything she had ever hoped or dreamed.  All her losses, all her little deaths.  All the sacrifices she had made for _the cause_ – not Mystique’s cause, but for a tomorrow, for something better.  For something more than pain and destruction.  For a world she had left behind.  For a world she had striven – endlessly, fruitlessly – to claw back.

            It exposed the secrets she had hidden even from herself.

            The sacrifices she had been willing to make without even knowing.

            And then it was over, the Phoenix’s journey into her soul unceremoniously ended.

            _Ah_ , the Phoenix’s voice sounded in her mind with something like a smile. _I see what is in your mind.  I see what is in your heart.  For how very long you have been preparing yourself to make this sacrifice._

            And the face of Jean Grey smiled.

            “But are you sure sacrifice is what you want, Rogue?” she spoke aloud this time. “The Phoenix gives as well as takes.  For it is life, as well as death.  You would offer up your humanity, Rogue.  And I would take it willingly – but what would be left?  Deep in the darkness of your soul there is something you fear and desire more than anything – the power to burn away the pain and suffering of this world.  I can give you that, if you offer me your humanity in return.  I will make you more than Rogue could ever be.  There would be no need to remake the past; together we could forge the _future_.”

            Rogue hesitated.  For the first time she saw, she felt, more acutely than she ever had done, what exactly lay within her grasp.  Was it just the formidable powers of Rachel and Remy coursing through her that whispered of the greatness she was born to possess?  Or the chorus of psyches in her mind, their memories, their powers a veritable storehouse of unimaginable potency buried within her in their own right?  Was it the knowledge that Essex had been right all along – that she held the limitless potential to make things _right_?  A month ago, she would never have entertained it as truth.  But now, with the world crumbling around her for real and no way out – the Phoenix’s offer was a temptation.  It was an invitation to wave a magic wand.  It didn’t mean she had to do anything _bad_ – just enough to make the Sentinels, the Hounds, this sick sad world itself – _go away_.

            “You don’t need her,” Remy broke in unexpectedly before she could even make her choice, his voice so flippant as to tell her that _flippant_ was the last thing he felt. “You need _me_.  She doesn’t have what _I_ have.”

            And Jean laughed – a laugh that was not hers, but was unquestionably the Phoenix’s.

            “Don’t be disingenuous, Remy.  I know what she is.  She could have what you have and more.  She could devour you whole, take everything you possess.  You and _everyone_ in this sorry world.” She turned to Rogue, no attempt to dissemble now. “I know what it’s like, Rogue.  To devour lives, to eat worlds.  The difference between you and I is that what I destroy always returns to the source.  It is reborn.  Give me yourself, and I will give you that power.  The power to give as well as to take.  To sow as well as to reap.  The power to make reparation for your sins.”

            Rogue inhaled noisily.

            Was it Irene’s voice she heard then?

            _Reparation for our sins_.

            She stepped forward to accept and as she did so she felt Remy’s hand slam into her shoulder hard.

            “ _Stop_ ,” he hissed between gritted teeth.

            She did.  She looked at him like she had looked at him the night before, that moment when she had never felt so close, so intimate with another human being.  And her gaze was sad.

            “We have a chance, Remy,” she whispered. “Let’s take it.”

            “Let _you_ take it, you mean,” he ground out. “Like hell!  Dis ain’t de answer.  I know what you’re t’inkin’, Rogue, and it _ain’t_.”

            “Why not?  This is what we signed up for, ain’t it?  Sacrifice?” She touched his hand on her shoulder, but didn’t quite have the heart to remove it. “This is mah chance to pay mah dues, to make things _right_.”

            “There won’t be anything left of you when she’s done with you,” he growled, and she was almost surprised to see real pain bleeding in his eyes.

            “Yes, there will,” she replied sadly. “There always _is_.  Ain’t Ah livin’ proof of that?  When Ah absorbed you, you stayed inside me.  When we were apart, you were the most real thing in the world to me, anchorin’ me to everythin’ that meant anythin’ to me.  Ah’ll still be inside her, Remy LeBeau.  Ah’ll still _love_ you.  Always.”

            The words spilled out, unintended, and she almost choked on them.  And he didn’t say a word.  He couldn’t fight her on this one.  She thought that maybe he couldn’t even pretend to give her the same.  So she slid his hand from her shoulder and stepped past him.  She stood before Jean Grey and met her eyes.  Green on green.

            “Ah’m ready,” she said.

 

            She had seen Jean Grey power up before.  She had seen her on that last fatal mission to Pittsburgh, the mission that had taken her life.  She had seen her become the Phoenix without really understanding what it had meant to be bonded to a cosmic entity.  She had seen, too, the transformation start, the tongues of flame lick through her red hair, the liquid fire pooling beneath her skin like molten lava coursing through her veins and spilling out of her pores; the Phoenix raptor encasing her in a geyser of swirling flames that all at once seemed to consume and inscribe her, sketch her out of living starfire.  She saw it now as she stood before this heat that did not burn, yet nevertheless devoured whatever stood in its path.  She was not afraid of it.  For a moment she saw herself through the eyes of Irene, a young girl and an old woman whose powers were now imprinted on her forever.  She saw herself stand before the conflagration as the Phoenix reached forward with the flickering arms of Jean Grey, ready, as she always had been, for the unholy embrace.

            And she saw Remy move.

            She saw him swing into her way just as the awful connection would have been made, and for a split second Rogue barely understood what had happened, even as she saw Remy step into her path, just as the Phoenix would have descended upon her… And it was _he_ that Jean Grey instinctively reached out to, _he_ that she fed upon, ravenous as the monster, unforgiving as the beast, and…

            “ _No,_ ” Rogue breathed in a word that should have been a scream but that was strangled by horror as she realised what he had done, that it had been for _her_.

            He screamed, a terrible, jangling sound that she’d never heard a living thing make before.

            And the Phoenix fed, bathing him in the flames of her eternal fire, paring his mortal bones down to the soul and Rogue recognised in an ungodly flash the expression on the face of Jean Grey, a sickening expression that was all too familiar to her… Because she had seen it in herself.

            _We are a cancer.  We are the vampires.  We feed so that we may live_.

            No.

            Not anymore.

            She couldn’t allow it.

            She _wouldn’t._

            “ _No!_ ” she cried, and she was moving before her brain could even formulate a damn thing, she was moving without even knowing what she did; pure instinct, nothing more – the preservation of everything she held dear, everything that meant anything to her.

            He would not die for her sake.

            He would _not_.

            She reached out with her toxic flesh, put her hands into the flames… and at first there was nothing, just the numbness of an icy cold, the bitterest chill she had ever known or experienced… And somehow her hand closed over what she thought was the wrist of Jean Grey… She tried to wrest it aside, to pull it away from Remy, but she could not… And that was when she felt it, _the burn…_ The same celestial conflagration that had given birth to the universe, that had consumed a thousand suns and burned away the souls of untold mortals across countless galaxies… …

            And her reaction was instinctive.

            The only way to stop this.

            She tightened her grasp.

            And she _pulled_.

            What she had expected she didn’t know.

            She had, after all, been unable to absorb even Sinister. 

            It was an action born out of desperation, a last, frantic gamble in the face of a loss she could not bear to comprehend.

            She hadn’t _really_ expected it to work.

            But it was too late to regret it when it _did_ , for as soon as she _pulled_ she felt that familiar tidal wave rush over her; but this time white hot and burning, a wall of flames hurtling over her head in rhythms too colossal, too ancient and primal to be understood…  The power of the Phoenix, all-encompassing and indescribable, flooded her in an instant… And little as she had been expecting the onslaught, the Phoenix had expected _hers_ even less.

            When she screeched it was like every atom in the universe shattering; and the sound was so inhuman, so terrifying, that Rogue realised almost too late that her desperate wager with Fate had worked – the connection between the Phoenix and Remy was broken – it had snapped.

            It was only then that Rogue allowed herself to release her grasp, and when she did the Phoenix stumbled backwards, momentarily confused; and Rogue felt Remy slump against her – whether dead or alive she couldn’t tell.

            She didn’t waste time trying to figure it out.

            Her body, her very being was thrumming with a frightening and alien power, one that threatened to blot out her personality in a fatal instant.

            Only one thing gave her focus, held her together.

            _Get him away from here.  Get us out!_

            Flames licked against the corners of her mind, slowly, steadily – where Rogue ended and the Phoenix began she had no idea, but she knew – somehow – what she must do.

            She threw her arms around him, she drew in everything she had stolen from him and Rachel and Tanya, and she gathered those streaming, golden threads with her mind…

            A twist, a tweak, a shower of shimmering molecules, and the next moment—

            They were gone.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	23. Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst Rogue and Remy are lost in the Timestream, Rachel and Tanya work together to fix the timeline…

            Rachel stood stunned as Rogue and Gambit winked out of existence, alarmed as the Phoenix staggered backwards in momentary confusion.  There was a spot on her forearm, a patch of skin where Rogue had gripped her, now dusky pink with pressure – it was the mortal flesh of Jean Grey.  As the Phoenix slowly righted herself the translucent flames pooled in over the exposed flesh like liquid mercury, until no sign of bare skin remained.

            “What—?” Rachel began, taking a step forward but pausing when she saw the expression on her mother’s face.  There was warning in that look, silent and penetrating.

            She held her breath and waited.  It was only a few moments before the Phoenix had fully powered down, and Jean Grey stood before her once more.  Rachel could see clearly that there was a bruise of delicate mottled blues and purples on her wrist.

            “She absorbed you,” she murmured, half stunned by the realisation; Jean Grey lifted her arm, looked at the handprint on it impassively.

            “Yes.  A foolish gamble, I think.  She should have allowed me to continue.  I would not have harmed him.”

            Her tone was level, but not incurious – Rachel read something in it, an implicit admission that she knew only she was able to read.

            “I think you know you would have,” she disagreed softly.

            Jean looked at her then.  Sharp.  Incisive.

            And then she smiled.

            “Perhaps I would have.  Sensation is so sweet, my dear.  And that man, more than anyone, knows it to be true.  The most sublime highs, the darkest despairs; the thrill of the chase, and the deep cut of the wound… even the cruel sweetness of love.  He savours them all.  And I had not felt such intensity of sensation since—”

            “Since mom,” Rachel finished for her in a hard voice.

            Jean said nothing.

            It was strange.

            She now knew with a keen certainty that the being before her was _not_ her mother.  A part of her _was_ there – an echo, a stain, a shard – but nothing more than that.  She felt impelled to acknowledge it aloud.

            “You’re _not_ my mom,” she stated, and Jean looked at her.

            “I am her,” she answered simply. “And she is me.” She smiled, a warm smile this time; she touched her breast with the palms of both hands, in the place where her heart should be. “The resonance of your mother’s soul calls out to me, Rachel.  I have travelled across time and space to find her, over and over again.  In every thread of the Timestream she is there, she calls to me as I call to her.  She never refuses me.  Every little piece of her that she gives over makes me a little more whole.” She paused, and her eyes met Rachel’s once more, clear and beseeching. “But I am never whole.  She cannot _make_ me whole.”

            She stopped, interrupted only by the soft whimpering of Tanya’s huddled form between them. 

            “Poor child,” she crooned piteously. “Cast into this hostile world in order to fulfil the machinations of Fate.  Destiny is cruel, Rachel.  She is exacting.  And we are _all_ bound to her.”

            Rachel shook her head slightly, distracted as she was by the broken form of Tanya, a vision of what she so easily could have become.

            “We still have a choice,” she insisted quietly; Jean’s smile was indulgent.

            “Some of us, yes.  For others… choice is nothing more than an illusion, something that rests upon the fate of others.  Such is _your_ reason for being here, my daughter.”

            Rachel stared at her, half mutinous, half questioning.  She did not _fear_ the Phoenix; yet, despite knowing that all the shades of her mother were harboured, crystallised forever inside this cosmic being… even so, she did not entirely _trust_ the Phoenix.

            “Your friend made her choice,” Jean continued when Rachel said nothing. “She chose _love_ over _this_.  It wasn’t a conscious decision.  It was instinct.  It was what she _truly_ wanted, deep down.  And our success – _your_ success – hung upon her decision.  Thus… we can go no further.  I cannot do what you came here for me to do.  Turn back, Rachel Summers, my daughter.  Face the future that you have made, that was always meant to _be_.”

            And as the Phoenix turned away from her, the truth came to Rachel in a flash.

            She somehow saw the cruel and exacting web of Fate that the Phoenix had spoken of, the endless labyrinthine corridors of Time that had brought her to this place, to this widow spider’s lair.

            Rogue and Gambit, a means only to a monstrous end.

            There was never supposed to have been _three_ of them. 

            Only _one_.

            Only _her_.

            Rachel Summers, the saviour of mutantkind.

            She didn’t understand it, didn’t fully believe it, and she never had.

            But she saw now that Rogue and Gambit had only ever been a callous device for bringing her to _this point_.  To the fulfilment of her destiny.

            Like her time as a Hound, like the tortures of her amnesia, like the love of Franklin and the futility of his death, _their_ sufferings, _their_ travails had been nothing more than coldly calculated moves on the chessboard of destiny, a tempering of souls, a guiding of spirits, a prodding of lives like so many pawns across that black and white checkerboard towards… towards _what_?

            Towards _this_.

            In a flash it was there before her, the floodgates opening, the waters bearing down upon her, dousing her in the cold realisation of the truth.

            The Phoenix was the only one that had the power to change Time _irrevocably_ , and in order to do so she would have devoured the souls of both Rogue and Gambit whole, taken all their memories, their powers, their life forces…And through Rogue, the essences of all the countless psyches she herself had absorbed.  Only then – having drunk her insatiable fill – would the Phoenix have had the power to lead Rachel to her Destiny, to the role she had always been meant to play.

            _Saviour_.

            It had a sick and hollow ring to it.

            It always had.

            _But._

            And Rachel found herself saying the word in her mind instinctively – as instinctive as Rogue’s decision to save Gambit had been.

            The Phoenix was _wrong_.

            Because the Phoenix had failed to grasp one simple, crucial thing.

            That Rachel was the daughter of her mother, and that the Phoenix and Rachel were _one_.

            “Wait,” she spoke on a breath; and she was surprised to hear her own voice, to hear the self-assured authority inherent in it.  The Phoenix must have heard it too, for she stopped and swivelled at the sound of that word, silent wonder and expectation on her face.

            And there was a moment, just a moment, of hesitation in Rachel.

            A moment of denial, of childlike disbelief that any of this could be true.

            But it _was_ true.  She couldn’t explain it.  She knew it right down to her very bones.

            “It’s _me_ you have to bond with,” she began on a breath, more urgent than confident, even as she knew that what she said was _right_.  The Phoenix stared at her a long moment as if uncomprehending, and she continued impatiently, “Don’t you see?  I am the blood daughter of Jean Grey.  All those little pieces of her inside you, they’ve never been enough.  You know why?  Because it’s _me_ you need to fill in the gaps, to make you _whole_.”

            And the Phoenix’s lips parted, her mouth forming a small O.  No sound came out.  It gave Rachel the courage to continue.

            “I’ve never understood it,” she spoke in an undertone. “I’ve never understood why, in all my time wandering through the Timestream, there’s never been another _me_.  I’m unique in the universe, just like you.  And I finally understand the reason.  It’s the real reason we’re _both_ here.  We were _made_ to complete each other.  Two sides of the same coin.  The infinite and the celestial; the fallible and the mortal.  Together we can complete _us_.  Rachel Summers, the woman; and Jean Grey, the Phoenix.”

            She would never understand it, not when she looked back on it years later.  Neither of them – not the mortal, nor the divine – fully comprehended the ramifications of the decision they both made, without protest, without sound, in that single moment.

            Because there _were_ consequences – a little death of each.

            What is it like, for the divine to give itself up to decay?

            What does it mean, for the mortal to comprehend the untold vastness of infinity?

            It is like a death.

            It means sacrificing a piece of yourself forever.

            Your immortality.

            Your humanity.

            The Phoenix stepped towards her, flames spiralling from her fingers, her arms, and through her hair… And Rachel closed her eyes, held herself tight, as the cosmic inferno finally engulfed her.

And yet, in that moment of untold rapture, of glorious apotheosis… her last truly human thought was clear.  It was lyrical in its simplicity.

 

            _I was born for this_. 

 

_I was born for this._

 

*

 

            A horrible silence reigned, oppressive and weighty, even in this place where the Timestream flowed by with supreme indifference.

            In the midst of it, Rachel reached out through the egg of light and touched the forehead of the huddled, curled up form of Tanya Trask.

            “Now let’s see,” she murmured to herself.

            A light seemed to penetrate her hand, its warm glow touching the furrowed brow of the girl beneath her.  It would not take too much to fix her – but, ironically, it was not her purpose to undo what had been done in the past.

            Instead she reached out with her psychic tendrils and bonded with the girl.  Propped her up, gave her strength, boosted her powers, repaired that tenuous link to sanity she so lacked.  All for the sake of this one moment, this one thing she knew they must do.

            Tanya’s whimpering stopped.  Her breathing slowed.

            And when the light had died from Rachel’s hand, she placed it upon the girl’s shoulder.

            “Tanya,” she spoke in a voice that bore a strange gravitas mingled with softness, “it’s time to go.”

            Tanya peered up at her from behind those dark brown curls, eyes red-rimmed and timorous.

            “It’s time?” she asked thinly, and Rachel nodded.

            “Yes.  I’m sorry I took so long.  I think I’m ready now.”

            Tanya said nothing.

            She unfolded herself like a marionette under the strings of a long-awaited puppet master.

            She stood and when she looked at Rachel there was no longer any fear in those eyes, any confusion.  There was a hunger – not the hunger of madness that Rachel had come to recognise in her, but the same steely eagerness of the matador going into the bullpen.

            “I’m glad,” she spoke in a low voice. “I can’t do this without you, you know.”

            “I think you could,” Rachel returned quietly. “But I don’t think you’re ready.  I don’t know if you’ll ever be.”

            She turned aside, just as Tanya piped up a little testily behind her: “But _you_ are?”

            “The Phoenix bonded with me,” Rachel replied, as if it should explain everything; but whether through frustration or spite or jealousy, Tanya couldn’t help but say; “Why didn’t she ever choose _me_?”

            And Rachel suppressed a wry smile as she looked back over her shoulder.

            “You haven’t got the right parents.” She held out her hand to the girl. “Come on, Tanya.  Let’s go.  For real this time.  No more playing around, no more cat and mouse.  This time we do this together.  We fix everything _together_.”

            For a split second a shade of suspicion crossed Tanya’s face; but she’d wanted this moment too long, too badly, to back away now.  She blinked away her doubts and put her hand in Rachel’s, firm as a handshake.

 

            And barely a second later the world pulled away from under them.

 

*

 

            They stepped into the dimness of a room Rachel did not recognise – though she knew, instinctively, where she was.

            It was an engineering lab, humming in the gloom of low security lights, buzzing with the whine of electric cables and sleeping monitors.  There was the smell of metal and the plastic casings of computers and laptops and tablets and photocopiers.  The console at the far wall looked like something from an old movie she had seen in a store window once, back in her old life – a movie about big robots trying to kill each other.  It had always made her wish the Sentinels would do the same – just kill each other and leave the humans alone, even if it’d just have meant that the statics would’ve just killed mutants in other, less inventive ways.

            Tanya dropped her hand and took a step forward.

            She glanced about her with a growing sense of wonder.

            “You brought me here,” she whispered, child-like. “To the _past_.”

            “Only where you need to be,” Rachel replied quietly.

            Tanya paused and stared at her.  For the first time since Rachel had known her, there was fear on the girl’s face.

            “How do you know what I want?” she rasped. “You don’t _know_!”

            Rachel lifted her shoulders, unconcerned.

            “You told me what you wanted to change.  So I _brought_ you to the thing you wanted to change.”

            “And I’m embodied here?” Tanya persisted suspiciously. “I mean… I’m _physical_ here?  Not just an astral form?  Not just a thought form?”

            “Yes,” Rachel answered simply. “I gave you a shard of the Phoenix Force, boosted your powers.  You’re real here, _physical_.  Just like I am.”

            “So I can make a difference?  So I can _change_ things?”

            Rachel was silent; but Tanya refused to back down, to look away.  She wanted an answer.  She’d waited too long to be disappointed, to be unsure, to be tricked.  And so Rachel told her the truth.

            “Yes.  You can change things.  You can leave your imprint on the past.  But it’s hard to say whether you can affect _future_ events.  Your actions here are like a stone.  Cast it into the waters and the river flows around it, over it, buries it over; or washes it away.  The Timestream is the same.  It’s the way it’s meant to be.  It always strives to contain a paradox.”

            “But it is _possible_ ,” Tanya reasoned stoutly, earnestly. “Throw a stone in that’s big enough, big enough to stay unmoved and above water…”

            Again Rachel lifted her shoulders.

            “Yes.  It’s possible.”

            Silence.  Tanya glanced at the floor, brows knotted, nodding wordlessly to herself.  When she raised her eyes to Rachel’s again, her eyes were steely.

            “All right,” was all she said.

 

            Bolivar Trask was sat hunched over his desk, typing feverishly away at his laptop.

            His wife had threatened to leave him for the second time this year, and he knew he should be making things up to her somehow, but when it came to it, this was more important.  It was _always_ more important.  He couldn’t help it and he didn’t know why.

            “Daddy!”

            He heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet, felt his gangly five year old daughter fling herself at him, almost toppling him from his seat.

            “Tanya!” he clicked with exasperation. “How did you _get_ in here?  Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me after dinner?  You shouldn’t use the code to get in here without your mom’s permission!  Didn’t I tell you only to use it in an emergency?”

            His daughter – dressed in a pink nightie and holding her favourite limp and bedraggled teddy bear in the crook of her arm – pouted belligerently at him.

            “It _is_ an emergency, daddy.  Larry wet the bed again.  Mommy told me to come and get you.  She said it was _your_ turn to sort it out.”

            Trask swore under his breath.  Typical Sandra, using their children as weapons.  He knew she was baiting him, and he reined in his temper with an effort, said; “Daddy’s busy right now, darling.  You go and tell your mommy that now, okay?  Tell her I’ll deal with things _next_ time.”

            “But daddy, you’re _always_ busy,” Tanya protested, hovering there, uncertain whether to obey her mother and stay, or to obey her father and go. “And mommy will get cross.  I don’t want to make her cross.”

            “Do you want to make _me_ cross?” he asked her, beginning to lose his patience again.  He knew, but had never consciously acknowledged the fact, that Tanya loved _him_ best.

            “No,” she replied sullenly, and he gave her a clumsy smile.

            “Well then, dear, go and tell your mommy what I told you to.  And tell her I’ll be back in about an hour.  I really have to finish writing this programme.”

            His daughter looked doubtful, but, after a split second of indecision she turned and ran out of the room.

            Trask sighed as he heard the titanium sealed doors clang shut behind her, turning back to his machine.  Perfect code filled the screen, the cursor blinking placidly at him, waiting for his next command.  He’d lost his rhythm.  Here he was, on the verge of his masterpiece, the Master Mold programme nearly complete, and Sandra was demanding he sort out their infuriating son’s bed-wetting problem.  Didn’t she understand the importance of this?  Didn’t she understand that he was a man of genius, a man who was not like other men?  This was his moment.  His chance to make a _difference_.  She’d accepted that when they’d married, right?  She’d accepted the fact that he couldn’t give himself over to her a hundred percent, not all of the time anyway?

            “She’s a mutant, you know,” said an unexpected and low-pitched female voice behind him, and he turned, leapt to his feet, knocking the chair over as he did so.  He was startled to see a woman standing there in shabby, ill-fitting clothes, her face sallow, her curly, dark brown hair a matted mess.  She looked like she’d walked in off the streets; and considering the oddness of her statement, was probably on something too.  Trask mentally chided his daughter for breaking the rules he’d so scrupulously laid down by wandering in here when she wasn’t supposed to.  Obviously this homeless nutcase had sidled in right after her, seeing as she’d left the door wide open.

            _This is it_ , he thought vehemently to himself.  _Sandra’s going to hear about this…_

            “I don’t know how you managed to get your way past security,” he levelled coldly at this ugly, dishevelled person, “but I suggest you leave now before I call the police.  This is not a homeless shelter and you have no right to be here—”

            “Shut up, Bolivar,” she woman cut him off tersely. “Didn’t you hear what I said?  Your daughter’s a mutant.  And there you are, creating the programme for the very thing that will help kill her.”

            He was less surprised by the hard-nosed disgust on her face than the fact that she knew about the Master Mold project at all.

            _All right.  So she has to be one of our competitors.  Dressing up like a bum just to gain entry and spy on me… What an idiotic performance.  Is this the lengths they’re willing to go to?_

            “My daughter is not a mutant,” he retorted coldly. “And I think you’d better leave before I have you ejected from this building.”

            He’d shuffled a few inches back towards the desk, but she stopped him.

            “I don’t think you should move,” she said seriously. “I know you have a panic button under the desk.  I really don’t want to have to make a scene.”

            He froze, thinking, _well, they must’ve done their homework a lot better than last time_ , as the woman continued; “And your daughter _is_ a mutant.  Or she will be, anyway.  You should’ve had the scans done on her when she was born – then you would’ve known.  But it’s always the same with you, isn’t it, Bolivar?  No daughter of _yours_ could be a mutant, right?”

            Oh right.  _Now_ he got it.  He looked at the woman with narrowed, hostile eyes.

            “I see,” he stated quietly. “You’re a mutant.  Trying to make me stop the Sentinel research.  So how did you get in here, huh?  Change yourself into mist, walk through walls?  Doesn’t it speak for itself?  Your kind are dangerous.  There are boundaries in this world, and you freaks just walk right through them.  And you think we should just _trust_ you?  When you have the power to release a nuclear chain reaction through your fingers, or to flip the planet’s magnetosphere with just a thought?  This is about righting the balance, levelling the playing field.  You think we’re just going to stand by and _let_ you wipe us out?”

            And the woman actually looked sad.

            “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she murmured. “Especially when your daughter’s one of those freaks you want dead.”

            A flare of anger surged in him.

            “Stop saying my daughter’s a mutant!” he spat, but she smiled, knowing, condescending, replied;

            “Why should I?  There are some of us who can see the future, Bolivar.”

            He halted as if doused with cold water.  For the first time, doubt penetrated his supercilious mind.

            “You’re bluffing,” he threw back at her, but underneath the disdainful show of confidence he wasn’t sure, he _wasn’t_ certain…

            “I wish I was,” the woman replied. “What you’re doing now is creating a living hell, not just for mutants but for statics as well.  We won’t be able to do a thing without living under the shadow of the Sentinels.  And then there are the Hounds…”

            “ _Hounds_?”

            “Yes.  Mutants turned into weapons that _kill_ mutants.  Between them and the Sentinels, _no one_ will be free to walk the streets without fear.  And as for her… as for _Tanya_ … Do you have any idea what you’ll do to cure her from something that _can’t_ be cured?  Do you?”

            He gritted his teeth against her words.  The idea that his daughter – his own daughter – could be defective in some way, to _that_ magnitude… it was impossible.

            “Save me your self-righteousness,” he spat defiantly at her. “You think I _wouldn’t_ fight tooth and nail to cure my daughter _if_ she turned out to be one of you freaks?  Whatever it takes, whatever the cost, whatever the damage incurred – my daughter will not be one of _them_.  I’d rather she _died_ first.”

            He paused, breathless, his lips spittle-flecked; and something in the woman’s face changed – something behind the sallow skin and empty grey eyes snapped.  Something came out of her mouth – not quite a growl, but something feral nevertheless – and she took a step to him, fists bunched, face white, eyes flashing.

            “ _Dead!_ ” she seethed, screeched like a harpy. “ _Dead, would you!  So do it now, ‘daddy’!  Kill me now, and I’ll show you what it’s like!_ ”

            He didn’t have a second to react.  No sooner had the words left her mouth than something had clapped him between the eyes, and he was tunnelling inwards, outwards, no… _forwards_ … Into the future, into the tortured memories of this woman, this girl, this _mutant_ called Tanya Trask.

            And he saw it, saw the future she’d spoken of.  Sentinels marching onward, capturing and killing mutants and instilling fear into the statics; the war they had helped to fight, a war that they could only win – mutants subjugated, oppressed, forced underground, and the Sentinels, his pride, his crowning achievement, standing tall and erect and immoveable and terrifying over a frightened populace who both feared and loathed their new protectors, their new guardians… Hounds, bloody and war-like, pacing the streets every night in search of prey… Locked down cities where a latent X-gene meant that you could be sterilised or forced into an internment camp or your children taken away and never seen or heard of again – _take your pick_.

            And then there was the backdrop to all this, a soundtrack of his daughter’s screams, a place of horrific and unyielding purity, a place of _real_ genius, of _real_ creation… _The nexus of all Time_ … Bright, burning, all-seeing, all-knowing, onward-flowing, deathless, ageless, turning all men to dust, and…

            _SMASH!_

            He felt the splintering of her mind like an audible, physical thing – shards of self careening through his being like shrapnel piercing down through to his very soul and it was like _death like death like death like death like death……_

            “ _Tanya_!” he gasped as if strangled, and—

            “That’s enough, Tanya,” Rachel spoke calmly from the sidelines, as Trask dropped to the floor with an unceremonious _thud_.  He lay there, eyes rolling, mouth frothing, twitching uncontrollably.

            “Stay out of this, Rachel!” she screamed, rounding on the other woman with the all the appearance of a fully-fledged Fury; but Rachel ignored her, stepping past her and stating calmly; “I don’t think so.  He knows who you are now.  He’s seen the future.  And to top it all off, you’ve done exactly to him what he did to you.  You’ve broken his mind, Tanya.  You’ve _more_ than broken his mind.  When he wakes up he’s going to be nothing more than a gibbering mess.”

            The words were the only ones that could calm her rage.  Confused, frightened, she watched as Rachel knelt down beside his now motionless form and pressed a hand to his forehead.

            “Wait… _what_ …?  I did… _No_ … I didn’t mean to… I didn’t _mean_ to hurt him, Rachel…”

            Rachel looked up at her serenely.

            _Of course you didn’t,_ she spoke to her telepathically.  It was only when she glanced back down at the white, pinched face of her father that she realised that Rachel was _doing_ something to him.

            “What are you doing?” she asked angrily, fearfully, knowing, at the back of her mind, that she couldn’t hope to undo _anything_ Rachel chose to do, and never would.

            “Fixing him,” came the even reply. “Before the damage becomes irretrievable.  Wiping his memories of all _this_ too.”

            “You can’t _do_ that!” Tanya railed at her impotently.

            “Yes.  I can.  And I will.  You can’t do what _you_ just did.  It’s against the rules.  His mind will never be able to handle what he’s learned today.  And much as you despise him … I don’t really think you hate your father _that_ much.  Do you?”

            Tanya hesitated.  She looked down on the defenceless form of her father, and, despite everything he had done – _would_ do to her – no.  She didn’t hate him.  Not enough to want him like _this_ for the rest of his life.

            She dropped to her knees beside Rachel.

            “Let him be okay… _please_ …” she pled in a whisper.

            Rachel said nothing.  She closed her eyes momentarily and when she opened them again she stood.

            “He’s okay,” was all she said.

            Tanya couldn’t help but inhale a sigh of relief.  She reached out and touched her father’s cheeks.

            “I’m sorry…” she murmured – sorry for hurting him, sorry for being unable to make a _difference_ …

            Rachel had turned aside to the laptop on the desk.

            “We should go,” she spoke up softly.

            It seemed strange.  Here, now, after coming so far and hurting so much… after all the hate and bitterness and resentment that had consumed her life… She didn’t want to leave his side.

            “Just a moment,” she muttered, “to say goodbye.”

            “Even though he won’t remember?” Rachel asked behind her.

            She ran her fingers over his face, knowing that he was doomed to do what he had done to her.  That he was doomed to ruin her.  That she would never see him again.

            “Not in his head, no,” she replied almost inaudibly. “But in his heart, perhaps.” And she put her hand there, right where his heart was. “Dad,” she whispered – the last words she’d ever say to him. “I know you can’t hear me, but… You need to know this.  No matter what happens, somewhere – some _when_ – your daughter loves you.”

            She understood now.

            For the first time – only as she said those words – did she truly get it.

            Her role had never been to make a difference.

            It had never been to fix the future.

            The purpose of Tanya Trask had always been one thing – to make sure the future remained _exactly the way it was supposed to be._

            It was a quiet epiphany, and one that she didn’t fully comprehend, nor ever would.

            But for the first time she braved questing into her father’s mind, and what she saw there was the love he genuinely bore her – a twisted love, buried and mired under a hatred, an obsession, a compulsion to rid the world of mutants.  To protect the world _from_ mutants.

            She reached out with her mind instinctively, brushed off that tiny sliver of love that he held for her, polished it clean, imbued it with light.  She placed it back like a jewel in the darkness, like a diamond in the rough, she coloured it with all the depth and breadth and sincerety she knew he was capable of.

            This was it.

            Her only sacrifice.

            _You’ll do it for me, Daddy.  You’ll make the Sentinels for me. It’ll be your way of protecting me.  It’ll be compensation for the fact that you_ can’t _.  You’ll fail me, Daddy, but when you do you’ll swear you’ll never fail the rest of humankind.  Your failure to cure me will make the Sentinels your penance.  You’ll make them, and everything will be the way it_ should _be._

            So saying she withdrew from his mind with something like regret.

            Only then did she stand, joining Rachel, who was still at the desk, looking down at the laptop, her fingers on the keys.

            “Master Mold,” Tanya told her.

            “I know,” Rachel replied.

            “Will you erase it?” she asked.

            “No.  He’ll just write it again.” She turned away from the computer and looked at Tanya. “I suppose you won’t be going back.”

            “No.” Tanya shook her head. “I’m done with this place.  There has to be somewhere better.”

            “Staying in the Timesteam is not the answer.  It’ll just eat your mind,” Rachel warned her.

            “I know.  I’m not planning to go there.  I’ll find somewhere else to stay.  The future maybe.  Somewhere where the past – where _this_ – can’t be changed, where it doesn’t even matter.  Who knows?”

            Rachel levelled a stare at her.  One that said that, no matter what, she didn’t trust Tanya to make the right decisions, whatever timeline she happened to be in.  But she refrained from saying it outright, and Tanya was glad of that.

            “And you?” she asked of the friend she should have had. “Where will you go?”

            Rachel exhaled deeply.

            “Back home,” she replied.  Tanya was surprised.

            “After all the places you’ve been – _seen_?  You want to go back _there_?”

            “I owe our home some sort of resolution,” she returned. “I’ve run away from today long enough, Tanya.  Now it’s time to try and make a better tomorrow.”

            She swivelled and walked away.

            “I guess we’ll meet again then,” Tanya called to her, “back in the days of future past.”

            Rachel looked back over her shoulder and gave a wry smile.

            “Considering what we are, Tanya, I think you can count on it.”

           

            And so saying, she was gone.

 

*          *          *          *          *


	24. Irene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue is in danger of being consumed by the Phoenix, Gambit is near death and both are trapped in the Timestream… But Rogue has a hidden strength which brings her to an unexpected place…

They tumbled through the Timestream together, a man and a woman, bits and atoms free falling, reforming, held together by a single will splintered into pieces…

And where she started—

And where she began—

Where did she begin?

Where did he end?

            Where—?

            _Oh yes_

_The girl_

_She touched me_

_And_

_And I touched her_

_The Phoenix_

_And Remy_

_And Rachel_

_And and and and and and and…_

            She screamed.

            She was afraid.

            She had never been afraid before, not once throughout the long, dark tunnel of eternity.  But she felt it now.  The Phoenix felt it, and her scream reverberated through the Timestream like ripples of broken glass.

            Because this was not her.

            Because she was trapped in this human body.

            Because she could feel herself dying, decaying, with every second, every moment that passed, and it terrified her, it terrified her to feel the slow rot, the crawling death that came with mortality…

            So she snatched at them.

            Snatched at the pieces she knew to be her.

            Tried to rearrange them.

            Tried to piece them together again.

            But she kept getting—

            She kept finding—

            _Rogue._

            _Who is Rogue?_

_Who is me?_

And the _woman_ pushed through.  Pushed through with an almighty surge of strength the Phoenix had never seen or felt before.  Holding on for dear life.  Struggling to keep a tenuous grip onto her soul, her humanity.

            And she did what was second nature.  She fought back.  Tried to regain control.  Tried to push this woman, this Rogue, back down.

            But she was scared.

            She was scared and confused and _this is what it feels like to die……_

 

            _She forgets what it is like, you see._

_She forgets what it is to die._

_She only does it once every eternity._

_She rose from the pinpoint from which everything was born, from which everything still emanates.  She is boundless life, no pain, no struggles – she just_ is _._

_And living is simple._

_It is as it is._

_She is there to give it, to consume it._

_Whole star systems fall to her ravenous hunger._

_Whole galaxies flourish in the warmth of her light._

_She is the be all and the end all._

_Greater than the sun, more permanent than the stars._

_Immortality is a living marked out by meaningless millennia._

_Nothing has meaning but one’s own existence._

_She was born from the flames, at the beginning of Time._

_Her flames nourish life; they consume all flesh._

_She is all and nothing._

_The breadth of the universe, the depth of the ages._

_Time has no meaning for her, and neither does life._

_Only those fleeting, flickering moments of sweetness she steals from those unwitting souls… they are the only things left that interest her._

_And she finds them all here._

_She finds them all in—_

_—“Anna-Marie!”_

_He sees her sitting on the banks of the river, the Mississippi River bright as a jewel under the summer sun, and he quickens his pace as she turns and looks at him, a smile lighting lips so often caught in a frown that he can’t help but love it, he can’t help but love the fact that he can make her smile._

_He comes right up to her, drops his muddy rucksack into the tall grass beside him and says,_

_“Sorry Ah didn’t make it earlier, Anna.  Coach kept me back a few minutes.  Looks like I’m captain of the team!  Great, huh?”_

_“That’s awesome, Cody!” she enthuses as he drops down beside her and throws off his baseball cap.  He steals a look at her, and sees her smile is genuine.  Open and honest, even though he knows she doesn’t give a damn about baseball and never will.  He doesn’t care.  It feels good that she’s happy for him despite that._

_They lie together side by side under the sun just like they always do, and they make small talk and afterwards he can’t even remember what they say.  He remembers reaching out to hold her hand.  He remembers that for sure._

_And then he rolls on to his stomach and looks into her face, and he thinks she can guess what he’s thinking because suddenly she looks scared._

_“Cody, Ah don’t think–” she begins, but he cuts her off, he says,_

_“Don’t you want t’ kiss me, Anna-Marie?”_

_Her cheeks flush._

_She’s thought about it.  He can tell._

_“Ah won’t, if you_ really _don’t want me to,” he says, knowing she really_ does _._

_“It ain’t that,” she half-whispers. “It’s just that…”_

_“What?”_

_She bites her lip._

_“Ah’m scared.”_

_“What’s there to be scared of?”_

_“Ah dunno.  Ah just am.”_

_And he doesn’t want to admit that he is too, because he’s never kissed a girl before but he’s never wanted to kiss one so badly as he wants to kiss her._

_“Why would yah want t’ kiss me anyway?” she shoots at him, that familiar hardness covering over her curiosity, and he grins because this isn’t a hard question to answer._

_“Why wouldn’t Ah?  You can beat on just about any of those assholes in Grade 10, and you can catch them walleyes about a hundred times better than anyone else – me included… And b’cause you always look happy when Ah talk to you about the baseball team, even though Ah know you hate baseball.”_

_She can’t help but smile at his words and it’s like honey to him to see it._

_“And,” he continues, warming up, “you’re just about the prettiest gal in the whole county.  So how’s that for a good reason, huh?”_

_It’s a good reason.  The best reason.  Her cheeks are still flushed, but her eyes, those gold-flecked green eyes stare straight into his and they tell him… They tell him everything he needs to know._

_And his heart swells._

_He can’t quite believe it._

_He can’t quite believe this is going to happen._

_And he leans in towards her, and she closes her eyes, and her lips part and—_

_—she screams._

_She screams because she knows she’s awake, but everything is dark and she can’t see._

_All she can hear is her own ragged breathing and the sound of her voice in her own head._

_Her screams are so loud that she doesn’t even hear her frightened parents enter her bedroom, doesn’t even hear them call her name._

_“I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead!” she shrieks, and someone grabs her hands, she thinks it’s her father – it_ is _her father – he’s trying to keep her still; he says in voice too taut to be calm, “You’re not dead, Irene, you’re alive.  You’ve just had a nightmare, that’s all.  You’ve just had a very bad dream.”_

 _And, “no, no, no!” she wails, because she can’t make them understand, she can’t make them_ see _that something is terribly, utterly_ wrong _…_

_She feels a hand – her mother’s hand – touch her cheek; but there is no comfort in that touch… She feels her mother’s hand pause, tremble – and she realises.  Her mother sees it.  Her mother knows something is wrong._

_“Darling—” she says to her husband, and there is – for the first time – there is fear in her voice…_

_And she clings to it._

_She clings to that one sliver of understanding and cries, “I can’t see, mother!  I can’t—!”_

_“—I don’t understand,” she says, as she and her mom walk round the banks of the lake with the summer sun beating down on their backs, making the studs in her ears shimmer and shine like blood. “What do you mean you should be dead?”_

_Her mom says nothing for a long moment.  She looks out into the distance with an expression on her face that Rachel does not recognise._

_“You couldn’t understand, Rae, hon,” she answers at last, her voice barely above a whisper. “But one day, maybe… Yes…”_

_But she can’t let it lie at that.  She_ has _to know.  She_ wants _to understand.  It’s a hunger she cannot name._

 _“But if you didn’t die,” she reasons slowly, “then what made you_ live _?”_

_And her mom looks down at her then, with a smile so warm and loving it makes her hold her breath._

_“If I tell you, will you understand?” Jean Grey muses, almost to herself; and her smile deepens as she reaches out and takes Rachel’s hand in her own. “It was the Phoenix, dear,” she explains. “It was life itself.”_

_And—_

_—she huddles inside the cocoon made of golden threads, huddles inside this madness that has consumed her for longer than she cares to remember, when she becomes aware of it.  A presence, outside the shelter she has made for herself in this terrifying place.  A presence of warmth and flame, sweeping its gaze over her with a curious imperiousness that petrifies her to the core._

_She huddles in tighter, even though it is impossible to do so; ducks her head between her knees, wraps her arms around them – but the harder she hides the brighter the light, the warmer that heat.  It is the heat of stars churning, of the galaxy turning, and it is impossible to turn from, impossible to conceal even a single thought from._

Tanya, _says the thing – and it calls her by name, in a voice that is like a song in her head._

_“Go away,” she moans, and, “you’re not real,” she cries, and the thing reaches out to her, penetrates through the strands of Time and touches her head, and it burns, it burns so hot, it burns through the husk of her right down to every lie, every concealment, every hateful thought she’s ever entertained and hidden deep in the core of her and this is fear, this is fear knowing that someone can open you up, unpeel you layer by layer and see all the ugliness inside, all the wretchedness laid bare…_

I thought it was you, _says the thing in an ageless voice; and she realises that terrible touch is gone._ But I see it is not.  You are like her.  But you are not _her_.

            _“Like who?” she asks, and the thing says,_

Rachel.

 _And it turns away at last, it leaves her; but even when it is gone she still feels the monumental weight of its presence inside her, a force that cannot be denied, and she feels, she_ knows _… That with just a thought it could devour her, it could eat her up and there would be nothing left, no Tanya left, no—_

_“—Rogue.”_

_His voice is soft._

_She cocks him a sidelong glance and a smile from her place, standing at the railings of the boathouse veranda.  It’s a smile that is both simultaneously sexy and shy, and he can’t help it.  He can’t help wanting her, and he’s going to have her, even if he has to deceive her into it._

_He joins her at the railings and hands her a glass of wine.  Together they look out over the lake and up to the mansion.  Some of the lights are still on in the upper windows and he realises Ororo’s still awake.  He wonders if she’d disapprove of all this.  He feels certain she would._

_He tries to put that thought to the back of his mind._

_“So,” she speaks up from beside him, all false bravado, “is this a date?”_

_“I dunno.” He raises an eyebrow at her. “It can be whatever you want it to be, chere.”_

_She pouts and looks away._

_“Ah’ve never been on a date,” she murmurs.  He’s almost surprised.  Almost.  He would’ve figured, the way she’d come this evening, wearing that white dress and with her hair all loose and unruly, the way she knows he likes it… he would’ve figured she’s played this game before.  But it’s the butterfly pendant at her breast that gives the lie to that impression.  It’s too sweet, too cute.  Too honest and tentative a gesture.  He hitches a lazy smile, takes a sip of wine and says, “You coulda fooled me, chere.”_

_And she hits him with a look.  A look that clearly says she knows he’s lying.  That tells him nice try – no cigar._

_His smile widens and he looks away.  Every time he thinks he’s bested her she throws him a curve ball.  He kinda likes it._

_He likes it even though he senses the inevitability of the fact that he_ will _best her._

_He hasn’t liked the way his thoughts have been turning lately, but he’s been getting desperate, what with Essex on his ass and all._

_He’s going to seduce her and that’s that._

_He has the nullifier on him right now and ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour from now, he’s going to give it to her.  He’s going to let her decide what she wants to do with it.  He’s going to make sure she doesn’t have a choice._

_He watches her take a sip of wine out the corner of his eye; she leans against the railings, says, “The only dates Ah ever had were down by the river.  With Cody.”_

_He’s surprised to hear her say the name.  It’s been a sore subject with her ever since he first met her and he’s known from day one never to mention it.  He stares at her, but she doesn’t look at him as she brushes away a lock of white hair and continues._

_“But Ah guess they weren’t ever really dates.  We used to splash around in the river, try and catch bugs and fish… And sometimes we’d lie in the grass and talk.”_

_She gives him that look again, that sidelong glance that is both seductive and unassuming in turns, the look he’s never seen any other woman give him._

_“We coulda mucked around, Ah guess.  All the other kids were tryin’ it out.  But we never did.  Ah guess Ah thought about it.  Ah reckon Ah even wanted it.  But yah know, with Cody… it was never about the fumblin’ around.  He_ really _liked me.  Ah think that kinda scared him too.  It sure as hell scared me.”_

_She swivels round so that her elbows are resting on the railing, so that she can look right into his eyes.  The way she stands there, right beside him, is almost an invitation.  He looks at the curves inside that soft, white dress and swallows._

_“And does dis scare you too, chere?” he asks her quietly._

_She holds his gaze, doesn’t even blink._

_“It scares the shit outta me,” she replies softly. “It scares me more to know_ you _ain’t scared.  But Ah still want ta kiss yah.”_

_He holds a breath.  He holds it in because what she doesn’t know – and what he hasn’t even realised until now – is that he’s scared too.  He’s scared of hurting her.  He’s scared that he can want a person this much.  He’s scared that if tonight goes as planned he’ll just end up pushing her away again, and he doesn’t really want that, no matter how far and fast he thinks he should be running right now._

_“There are ways…” he murmurs; and that’s when she blinks, when she says,_

_“Ah know.”_

_He stirs.  This is an opening.  An opening too ripe to leave unpicked._

_“And if there are ways t’ kiss you, there are ways to go even further…”_

_The breath that leaves her throat is shallow._

_“Ah know that too,” she whispers._

_He puts a hand on her waist.  She doesn’t move it.  Her skin is warm enough to brand him through the thin cotton dress, and he wants so badly to touch it but he doesn’t dare._

 

_He looks down into her face, into those smoky green eyes, and he hesitates.  He doesn’t even know why._

_“I could just be playin’ you,” he mutters._

_“Ah know.”_

_“I could take everythin’ from you, chere, and just walk away.  It’s what I do.  It’s what I’ve always done.”_

_“Ah know.”_

_Not a flicker of her eyelids.  He pauses.  He re-evaluates.  The look he sends her is questioning._

_“And yet you’re still here…”_

_He trails off and she reaches out.  She reaches out and places a hand over his breast, says,_

_“’Cos Ah’m willin’ to bet… That beneath all the show and the swagger… all the hair and the angst… There’s a good sorta person inside you, Remy LeBeau.  A kind man.  A lovin’ man.” And her gloved fingers curl, warm and delicate, into the fabric of his shirt, over his heart, and he feels it quicken, he feels his pulse in his head and his mouth and everything tunnels when she adds, “A man worth trustin’.  Like Ah trust you.”_

_And he believes her._

_He believes her even as he stacks up all the betrayals he’s already made against her, betrayals she doesn’t even know about._

_Sinister._

_And the Morlocks._

_And all the drugs and the boozing and the whoring around._

_And this._

_This trap he’s laid for her._

_This night he’s had planned for ages now._

_Him and her and skin on skin._

_He believes she’d trust him even if she knew it all._

_He believes her that much._

_And something moves inside of him.  Something that was buried over long ago.  It moves like a key in a lock, like a hand on his heart, pushing the doors slowly open again._

_It moves and he almost chokes on it._

_He’s sworn to himself he’ll never walk this path again, but he takes that step without even consciously knowing it._

_She’s so beautiful, so beautiful and honest and open that he can’t help it, he quietly takes the step over that threshold and…_

_…And he falls in love._

_He falls in love with her._

_He falls in love._

            _He—_

            He was slipping.

            From somewhere in the darkness Rogue broke to the surface of a small oasis in her mind, a lone bastion against the fires of the Phoenix; and with that same, single force of will she held onto him, she held onto the one thing that anchored her to herself, the prism through which she saw herself brightest and clearest.

            And, through all the splintered fragments that just barely constituted her mind, she held _him_ closest.  Delicate as crystal, precious as gold dust.  It was through him that she found the strength to draw in all those broken shards, all those fractured pieces of shattered self.  He dulled the fires of the Phoenix, silenced that timeless voice to a dwindling whisper.  She had no idea how long she could resist that tide.  But he’d bought her enough time.  Enough time, she hoped, to shine a light through the darkness.

            Like a shooting star they streaked through the Timestream… And she gathered his power… And she gathered her own power… And she gathered Rachel’s and Tanya’s and the Phoenix’s…

            And she steeled herself against the infinite onslaught of Time, and… …

            For a moment that lasted forever, Time stood still.

            Then _— WHOMPF! —_ she hit solid ground and rolled with him still in her arms, and then _—_

Silence.

            _And she’s lying in the darkness with her back to him, and he can’t bear for the morning to come, the idea that they can get up and walk away from one another is like a sword in his heart even when he knows, he_ knows, _he should be running…_

_But he reaches out a hand, he places it on the soft, warm plane of her shoulder blade and he whispers,_

_“Wake up, Rogue.  Rogue, wake up.”_

Her eyelids flickered.

            The first thing she saw was grass, tall and sweet-smelling; and she twisted, confused, not knowing where she had landed, nor why there was no pain.

            Instead there was sunlight and birdsong.

            Rogue lay on her back and squinted.

            A flock of birds sailed across a bright blue sky and she stared at them, momentarily transfixed as they flew by, each and every one seeming to blaze like a beacon in the deepest dark.  And beyond them… beyond them a world was living.  She could _feel_ it.  She could feel it in her bones.  In her pores.  In her soul.

            The sea was surging and the sun was shining and the stars were burning and she felt the sum and total of their lifespans like Braille on her fingers and the wind in her hair.  She didn’t even need to look.  The world was alive – utterly, inexorably _alive_.  And she felt the entirety of it _inside_ her, as if she herself had given birth to it – from the scurrying ants at her back to the fathomless universe itself.  The world was life and so was she.  She was one with it.  It was her duty now to return to it.

            Rogue sat up slowly and looked down at her hands, almost surprised to see them so weak, so pink, so worn.  For a moment something like panic filled her and she thought, _these are not mine, this is not me…_ And then she remembered.  She remembered _feeding_ , and then the touch of flesh on her arm… A moment of starburst and then _—_

 _No!_ she thought wildly to herself, _I am Rogue, I am Rogue!_

But a part of her was _not_ Rogue and never would be again when the world spoke to her like _this and_ …;

            _This is what it is like to be mortal,_ she reminded herself.

            And that was when she saw him, lying with his back to her in the grass, only an arm’s length away.

            Something came over her then.  It was deep as a knife wound, burned more intensely than any brand.  And yet, strangely… it was not unpleasant.  Her hand went instinctively to her heart and yet for all the sharpness that she felt there, there was nothing.  No wound, not even a drop of blood.  It took a moment for her to place it.  This pain, this delicious pain, was exactly what Jean Grey had once felt for Scott Summers…

            Rogue scrambled onto her hands and knees and slowly covered the gap between them, ignoring the protestations of this strange, mortal body.  With a shaking hand she reached out and rolled him over onto his back.  His eyes were closed, his face pale.  She searched his features for _something_ , confusion rolling over her in waves, her heart aching with this horrible sweetness… And her throat burned as she ran her fingers over the lines and contours of his face.  It burned and she swallowed, but it wouldn’t go.

            “ _Remy_ ,” she whimpered in a voice that wasn’t her own, and she was almost surprised to see her own tears splashing onto his cheeks, tears of liquid fire that guttered themselves out on the coolness of his skin.

            She sobbed quietly.

            Because she knew he was alive – she could see it, she could feel it.

            The tiniest spark burning so strong, so stubborn, deep inside him.

            But she realised now what she had done.

            She was the Phoenix, and her fire had consumed him.

            What she had burned away she did not know – but a part of him was destroyed forever and it tore at her soul a thousand times more viciously than any mortal blow that had been dealt to her.

            She had killed him and she had saved him, and it felt like Death.

            “Why are you crying?”

            She looked aside at the unexpected voice, and saw with surprise a brown-haired girl in white lace and ribbons, standing in the grass only a few metres away from her, a quizzical look in her blue eyes.  The eyes were pellucid, crystal clear and penetrating, and somehow – not precocious – but _old_.

            Rogue looked back to Remy and placed her palms over his chest.  She felt his heart flutter there, soft and skittish as butterfly wings.

            “His life force is so shallow,” she murmured, mostly to herself, barely to the girl. “Yet it does not fade.  What does this mean?  How can he possibly endure?”

            “Who?” asked the girl.  She was nearer this time, her skirts swishing through the grass.  Rogue looked at her again.  She was wearing white Mary-Jane’s and messy ringlets.  Her knees were scuffed with grass stains.  She looked wild and awkward and ungainly, but her face was not the face of the thirteen year-old Rogue felt her to be.  It was too still, too sad.  Too etched with pain and suffering to be the face of a child.

            “The man I love,” she murmured in reply, not sure if the girl had heard her.  If she had or not, the girl said nothing.  She stumbled noisily through the foliage before dropping to her knees beside Rogue on a waft of English lavender and sandalwood.   The girl didn’t even look at her.  Instead she reached out with both hands, a determined slant to her mouth, and ran both palms on either side of Remy’s face.   Nothing was said.  What must’ve been a minute of silent concentration on the girl’s part passed before she removed her hands, the expression on her face communicating that her curiosity had been satisfied.  Rogue stared, feeling like a stranger in a strange land, yet feeling a kinship with this mortal child who seemed to be as alien as herself.  The girl’s soul burned bright, and, Rogue sensed, it would burn _long_.

            “How did you get here?” the girl asked at last.

 

            “Where?”

            “Here.  This is my garden.” She indicated with a toss of her brown ringlets the unkempt lawn, the oak and beech trees, the wild flowers sweeping up a hill, over which Rogue could only just make out a brick retaining wall.  She gazed about her with only a passing inquisitiveness.  Her hands were still on Remy’s chest, measuring out the rhythm of his heartbeat.

            “I don’t know,” she replied at length.  She could hardly explain the Timestream to this child; and even if she did, she had little conception of how or why it had brought her here.  She was dimly conscious of the fact that the part of her named _Rogue_ had managed to wrest control in those few split seconds before they had made landfall.  But whether she had consciously brought them _here_ … well, she wasn’t entirely sure of that.  And besides, she didn’t recognise this place at all.  The landscape meant nothing to her.

            The girl, on the other hand, seemed entirely comfortable with the idea that there might be strangers stranded in her garden.  She gave Rogue a look, head cocked to one side, and said, matter-of-factly: “He’s not going to die.  So you needn’t worry.”

            She smiled and Rogue gave her a quizzical look.

            “How do you know?”

            And the girl grinned showing pearly white teeth and answered;

            “Because I can see.”

            She didn’t give Rogue time to question her further.  In a trice she had stood up and was running back through the grass, and there was something in her movements – a certain jerkiness, a certain oddness of trajectory – that suddenly struck something in Rogue.  She got to her feet slowly, just in time to see the girl skip up to a picnic table, grab something from it, and turn back to her.

            And as the girl approached Rogue once more, she saw that what she held was a book.

            A diary.

            _The_ _Libris Veritatus_.

            And her heart almost stopped.

            The girl had ground to a halt only a couple of yards in front of her, looking around her with a suddenly questing expression on her face.

            “Are you there?” she called out, and it took Rogue more than a few moments to open her mouth and reply; “Yes, I’m here.”

            The girl was cheerful again, making up the distance between them with reinstated confidence, and when she was right there in front of Rogue once more she opened the book in her hands proudly and announced, “Here.”

            And what she saw was the picture she had seen so long ago on Irene’s desk, the crude watercolour of Remy with that shadow behind him, drawing him in – a shadow she now knew without a doubt to be Sinister.

            “Irene,” she said on a wisp of a breath, and the girl smiled again, closed the book carefully and stared up at her with sightless eyes.

            “Is it you?” she asked, so innocent, so unassuming, that Rogue was almost brought to tears again.

            “Yes,” she answered simply, finding no other words to say.  She stared down at her hands once more, the hands of the woman named Rogue, the hands that had stolen so many lives, so many memories… And she realised for the first time what her powers meant.  To the Phoenix, feeding on the souls of others was an act of supreme ecstasy.  For Rogue, it entailed only pain.

            “ _She_ must have brought us here,” she murmured, gazing about her in mild wonder.  It was a walled garden, overgrown in parts, a sea of green and brown emblazoned with pockets of red and blue and purple and white, with vetch and poppies and lavender.  Over a little knoll she saw a house of solid, dark Victorian brick, somewhat shabby yet not insignificantly proportioned.  This was the childhood home of Irene Adler, and somehow, for some reason, the psyche of Rogue had brought them here.

            A refuge perhaps – she wasn’t sure.

            _Or maybe it’s just Fate…_

            She said nothing.

            It was slowly beginning to dawn on her that she was not _her_ anymore.

            That what she now was was a spectrum, a continuum, an entity called _Phoenix-Rogue_.

            She looked down at Irene, the girl still standing beside her, gazing at her with eyes wide and unseeing.

            “You are blind,” she murmured.

            “Yes,” the girl replied – there was no sign on her face that she had taken offence at the observation.

            “Then you have written them all.  The _Libris Veritatus_.”

            The girl’s brow furrowed, uncomprehending.

            “The _Libris Veritatus_?”

            “The diaries,” she answered, indicating to the book in her hands. “Thirteen books written in a single year.  The future history of mutantkind, a story told in the visions of a young girl named Irene Adler.  When the visions ended so too did her sight.  Only the books remained.”

            Irene looked aside; her mouth twisted.

            “How do you know all this?” she whispered.

            And Rogue’s smile was sad.

            “We meet in the future, you and I.  I only say what you yourself told me.”

            The girl’s expression was still despondent.

            “Then I lied.  I never finished the diaries.  Yes – they cost me my sight.  But I never finished them.” She looked up at Rogue. “All I see now are the shadows that hover before us from one moment to the next.  I see which step I should take so that I should not fall.  I hear what I should say in order not to give offence.  But the sight I once had… the sight that robbed me of my eyes… It is gone, except in dreams.  The future is as shrouded to me now as the present is and always will be.” She frowned, a small frown, one more from puzzlement than bitterness or regret.  After a moment she shook herself and glanced back at Rogue. “There is a moment that I cannot penetrate.  A cloud, a darkness.  I tried to push past it, but I couldn’t.  It was _that_ which cost me my sight.”

            She turned and walked back towards the picnic table, and, feeling drawn somehow, Rogue followed.  The table was a mess of pencils and papers; a jar of cloudy water stood, full of dirty brushes in an array of sizes; tubes of gouache and a tray of watercolours lay beside it, the rainbow hues a messy myriad of mixed browns and greys.  Irene laid the book on the one empty rectangle of space available and flipped through the pages earnestly.  Then she paused, gestured to Rogue to _look_.

            She stepped forward, glanced over the girl’s shoulder.

            And for the first time she saw it.

            Her own death.

            A double-page spread of whiteness, adorned only with the hideous image of herself under Sinister’s knife.  She stood before it the way Remy had done in the past, in the future; looked down on it the way he had, with his heart in his mouth as the horrible truth consumed him.  She felt what he must have felt – a blade in the heart – and instinctively she went to touch the scar at her breast, the scar that was evidence of what she now saw before her – a death yet to be, a death already averted.

            “Your death,” Irene explained in a small voice; and Rogue swallowed, nodded, said; “I did not die.”

            And again Irene’s brow creased in consternation.

            “You mean… The moment is now passed?”

            “Yes.” Rogue looked back over her shoulder at the man lying silent and still in the grass behind her. “Because of him.  He killed me.  But he saved me too.”

            “And I cannot see beyond because—?”

            “Because you cannot go where Time does not lead,” she answered cryptically.  She wasted no more time on explanations but reached out and touched the book on the table, the thick, textured Victorian paper that felt more like heavy fabric under her fingertips.  She turned the pages, away from the picture of her and Sinister, away from all the blank, white pages that followed.  And when she turned to the final page… there was nothing.

            Nothing.

            The emptiness gnawed at her.

            It begged to be filled.

            Instinctively Rogue reached for the brushes, dipped one into the red paint; and when she put it to the paper she drew only what she knew she must, only what she knew had always been.

            She drew herself.

            And when she was finished she laid aside the brush, turned to the girl who had been standing with so much rapt attention beside her, and said; “Do you see it?  Do you see the last page?”

            Irene nodded.

            “And after that?” she asked.

            Rogue smiled.

            “The _end purpose_.”

            It seemed strange – all those years, all the many times she had heard those words and never understood them, only to understand them _now_ … And Irene, so young, so fragile, accepted it in a way she, Rogue, had never done – without question, without hesitation.

            “The end of Time?” she probed, wide-eyed and innocent, an innocence that Rogue now saw had long been shattered – for this girl had seen things no child should ever see.

            “In a way, yes,” she returned softly.  She pointed to the picture she had just drawn, to the red fires of the Phoenix still wet and glistening on the page. “All is ended.  All is consumed by flames.  That is my destiny.  It is my destiny to destroy the world.  But from the flames the Phoenix…”

            “…Rises from the ashes.”

            Rogue nodded.

            “Yes.”

            “But _why_?”

            And she saw it then – the fruitless questing that was the lot of the human race.

            “All that is, all that ever was, must return to the source.  It must return to me.  We must die, so that we may live.”

            “And then?”

            “And then we are reborn.  We live again.  We start anew.  Everything must die, so that everything may live once more.  I am the cycle.  Both consumer and creator of all.  Without me there is nothing.  There is silence.  There is _true_ death.”

            She turned away and began to walk, back towards the lifeless form of Remy.  Irene followed her, silent and inquisitive, saying nothing – perhaps digesting the Phoenix’s cryptic words.  She let the girl follow, wordless; and when she stood before the unconscious man in the grass something flickered inside her again, as palpable as fingers stirring jigsaw pieces or broken shards of glass.  The pieces of Rogue, drawn to him as a moth to a flame, responding to his call, striving to answer, struggling once more for dominance.

            She drew a hand over her eyes and sighed.

            “I see it now,” she murmured half to herself. “I see what has happened.  I did not consume _her_.  She consumed _me_.  I am not the Phoenix – I am a shadow, a facsimile of myself.  A part of me lives inside this body.  A part of me always will.” She paused, knelt down beside Remy, touched his hair, wondered at the texture of it. “But this body is not like that of Jean Grey.  It is not ready to leave the flesh.  It is not ready to let go.” And she shook her head, closed her eyes, whispered: “Ah am not ready to let go…”

            “There’s no need for that, Rogue,” came a voice behind her, and she opened her eyes, glanced over her shoulder.

            Rachel Summers stood there in the tall grass beside Irene Adler; and she was surprised to see that the harshness, that cool bitterness, had gone out of the young woman’s face.

            “Rae?” she spoke, getting to her feet, confused – how had she found her way here? – but Rachel smiled, calm, patient.

            “Rachel, yes.  The Phoenix too.  It took me a long time to realise it, Rogue.  The Phoenix has been looking for me.  And I… I’ve been looking for her.  My entire life.”

            Rogue frowned, feeling something shift underneath her skull.  She understood, and she knew she shouldn’t.  The Phoenix was inside her, her timeless existence ebbing and flowing on some inner tide, washing in and out of the shores of her mind, one moment passive, the next dominant.  And she – Rogue – was too weak to fight it off indefinitely.  One day, she knew, that small shard of the Phoenix would devour her, and there would be no Rogue left.

            “Ah understand,” she murmured.  She found herself turning back to Remy’s prone form, the only thing that kept her tethered to herself. “Will he ever wake up?” she whispered.

            Rachel seemed to realise he was there.  The smile left her face and she dropped to her knees beside him, placed a hand on his chest.  There was something intangible – a pulse, a warmth, perhaps – in that touch.  Whatever it was, somehow it _moved_ him.  He gasped, he spluttered, he jolted like a soul stuffed like so much sawdust into a burlap body – and then he fell stiller and more silent than ever.

            Rogue stepped forward, alarmed; but a hand wormed into her own, comforting her and holding her back in equal measure.  When she looked down she saw it was Irene.

            Birdsong permeated the silence; Rogue held her breath painfully, soothed only by the warmth of the small palm in her grasp.  It seemed an age before she saw him breathe once more, with the deep regularity of sleep.  Only then did Rachel stand and face her, her expression solemn.  Rogue exhaled her pent-up breath.

            “Is he… Will he be okay?” she asked hoarsely.

            “I think so,” Rachel replied with a brief nod. “At least – he’ll live.  But _something_ died.  Nothing touches the fire of the Phoenix without losing _something_.  You’ll figure out what it is, in time.” She paused, grimacing. “But _you_ … You _gained_ something, Anna-Marie.  Something that should never have been yours.  It’s funny, isn’t it.  Here we are, in the presence of Destiny herself, and _everything_ is as it should be.  But not _this_.  You were never meant for the Phoenix.  Her fires have burned you, and they’ll continue to burn you until there is nothing left but ash.”

            “Ah took a risk,” Rogue returned quietly. “Ah was willin’ to accept whatever came with it.”

            “Including the risk that our mission might fail?” The smile on Rachel’s lips was wry. “That the past might never be changed?  That our deaths and the deaths of millions would be inevitable?”

            “Yes,” Rogue replied, her tone even quieter, to which Rachel merely gave something like a sigh.

            “You have a habit of making this kind of choice, Rogue,” she observed helplessly.

            “It’s a choice she’ll always make,” Irene piped up unexpectedly, her hand still in Rogue’s, her tone short and firm.  Rachel looked down as though noticing her for the first time.  This time her smile was genuine.

            “You seem pretty sure about that,” she noted sardonically, getting on her haunches in front of the girl.

            “It’s only what I’ve always seen,” Irene rejoined a little testily. “It’s one of the few things that’s _never_ changed.”

            Rogue frowned at her.

            “You mean Ah’m destined to keep failin’ in everythin’ Ah do ‘till all of _this_ ends?”

            It was only at that moment that Rogue saw an expression on the girl’s face that she would come to recognise in the face of the old woman she knew so well – that shrewd look that spoke of a wisdom far beyond the years of a mere child.

            “Failure is a matter of perspective,” Irene said matter-of-factly. “And anyway, why do you think you’ve failed?  Maybe you’ve done exactly what you were supposed to do.”

            Rogue stared at her, tongue-tied.  Only Rachel smiled.

            “She’s right.  You didn’t fail.” Her smile widened at Rogue’s perplexed look – only a little. “We should go.  I would say we don’t have much time, but that would be a lie.  Still, there’s a lot to do, and I’d rather do it now than leave it till later.” She turned and knelt down next to the still unconscious form of Gambit, looking at Rogue expectantly. 

She hesitated.

            Somehow, there was a sense of loss in her so deep, it rivalled the pain and desolation she had felt upon first waking up in the Brotherhood Headquarters so many years ago.  It was a pain that perhaps Irene had seen long ago, as a small girl scribbling the future in her diaries.

            Rogue looked down at her, her foster mother, a child still so young and open and accepting, seeing in those blue eyes the haunted look of the woman she would become, the woman Rogue _knew_.

            “There’s still so much Ah wanna ask you,” she spoke in an undertone. “So much Ah wish Ah’d had the chance to say.  If Ah’d known then what Ah know now…”

            She halted, her voice wavering.  Despite what had passed, despite the fact that Irene’s hand was warm flesh and blood in her own… The girl still somehow seemed as ephemeral to her as Irene the woman always had been, as Irene the phantom in her head was now.  All her life a barrier had lain between the two of them, and even now, when she knew exactly what path lay before this child beside her – this path of pain and suffering and sacrifice – it was impossible for her to speak of it, to give any sign of warning.  It was impossible to thank her for everything she had done.

            But the girl passed her a look, an innocent smile, squeezed her hand gently.

            “Why are you crying?” she asked again, as she had done before.

            And Rogue hardly knew the tears were falling from her eyes till that moment.

            “Because…” she began, and she stopped.  She couldn’t explain it.

            “Rogue,” Rachel interrupted softly behind her. “We should go.”

            Rogue nodded absently, wiping her eyes with the back of her free hand.  She pulled away from Irene slowly, let go of her hand, and turned towards Rachel and Remy.  One step, two steps.  She paused.  She swivelled back round and saw Irene still standing there with an expression that was so serene, so heart-wrenchingly familiar to Rogue that she didn’t need to think.  The words pushed at her tongue as if rising from a deep, long slumber.

            “Ah love you, Irene,” she said to the little girl. “Ah’ll always love you.  Ah want you to know that.”

            Irene said nothing; but she smiled.

            And that was the first and last thing Rogue ever took home from her.

            The smile of a girl, of a mother, of a mutant, long dead.

            Rachel stood, her expression ernest.

            “Don’t be sad,” she entreated.

            “Ah’m not.  Not much anyway.” She took in a shaky breath and glanced over her shoulder.  Irene was gone.  Somehow she wasn’t too surprised. “Let’s go,” she murmured, shivering slightly.  Rachel nodded.

            They turned back to Remy and Rachel knelt beside him, placed a hand upon his chest.  This time there was no violence.  A few moments later and he had opened his eyes; and as he looked up into Rachel’s face, she saw no distress.

            “Rogue?” he asked, soft and calm; and Rachel smiled placidly down on him, said; “It’s okay.  She’s fine.”

            She stood, put a hand out to him.  He stared at it a long moment, as though considering a particularly intriguing invitation.  When at last he took it, he got to his feet slowly, seemingly surprised at the virility of his own body.  That he was talking, that he was standing, flooded Rogue was an indescribable sense of relief.

            “Remy…” she breathed; and his gaze swept over, warm, appreciative – loving.

            “Rogue,” he spoke in a murmur, his eyes right on her. “You’re okay.  For a while back there I thought…”

            He paused: and it was only when _he_ smiled that Rogue allowed herself a smile too.  Rachel must’ve sensed the emotions running between them as she gave a little cough, breaking in apologetically, “Time to go, guys.”

            Gambit shot a surprised glance at her.

            “Back where?”

            “Home,” Rachel answered simply. “But first,” she began, giving Rogue a slight smile, “there’s something I have to set right.”

            So saying she reached out and placed a hand on Rogue’s forehead.  It was the hand of a mortal, warm and soft – and in its imprint, Rogue knew _exactly_ what Rachel meant to do in touching her.

            “Wait—!” Rogue began; but the word had hardly left her mouth when she heard that familiar, timeless voice in her head, calm and understanding, deep and ageless as the universe, saying: _Do not be afraid, Rogue.  I only take back what is mine, what belongs to the Phoenix._

And she felt it, there, in the back of her mind, the image on the last page of Irene’s diary, the beginning and end of _all_.

            _But_ — she began – and she could not finish the sentence.  It seemed irrational that she should deny this, but she feared losing what she had gained so presumptuously, and she couldn’t explain why.

            _The Phoenix understands_ , came the voice that, unfathomable as it was, still held an element of wryness.  _You have seen things no man should see, opened the doors unto vistas that no mortal should witness.  For the first time you understand creation itself.  But it is not for you to understand these things, Anna-Marie._

 _But it’s for Rachel to understand?_ Rogue protested, and the Phoenix laughed, song-like – the song of the spheres was in that laugh.

            _You absorbed.  Rachel bonded.  There is a difference.  You have a great power, Rogue.  It is a curse as well as a blessing.  And I know what it is you long for more than anything.  Yes – more than_ that _, even.  What you long for is to be clean.  To be whole.  To be the girl you were once more.  I can give you that.  But you mustn’t fear it._

And Rogue was silent, realising in spite of herself, what the Phoenix meant.

            For a moment she felt nothing, nothing but the imprint of Rachel’s hand upon her forehead, a simple warmth that suddenly flashed white hot and penetrating through the stark white corridors of her mind, the sanctuary she’d built for herself, the lake and the cedar tree and the mansion and the boathouse, and all the rooms within which the psyches of those she had absorbed silently slept…

            And as that fire finally burnt itself out, leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake, she heard that voice one final time, trailing away like the echo of a thousand supernovae in her mind…

            _There.  It is done.  Nothing left to trammel you to the past.  Look now to the future, Rogue.  Look to the future and don’t look back… … … …_

            And so to the future she turned.

            As that hand left her forehead and took instead her palm, she was guided out of that grassy garden and – with only a single step – back into the Timestream, as easy and mysterious a transition as stepping in under a waterfall of gold.

            Was it Rachel or the Phoenix that led them there?

            Was there any difference?

            She wasn’t sure.

            The only thing she was certain of was their destination.

 

            For better or for worse, they were finally going home.

 

*


	25. And

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue, Gambit and Rachel return to their home timeline, and the fallout of their actions finally becomes clear…

            They landed right back where they started, not even a split second later than the moment they’d left, hands still locked — and the Sentinel was still reaching for them, only moments away from contact…

            _And nothing had changed._

            “Remy!” Rogue shrieked over the monstrous rumbling of Trask’s killing machine. “Stop it!  Buy us some time!”

            And—

            “I can’t,” he yelled back. “I-I’ve got _nothin’!_ ” He stammered – actually stammered – added, “ _You_ got my powers, _chere_ – _you_ do it!”

            “Ah ain’t got nothin’ either!” she screamed, and the next moment she’d been slammed back into the wall by the bare force of the Sentinel’s hand, feeling her ribs crack under the weight of its momentum, the blood rush to her throat and her tongue and her lips and —

            “ _Anna!_ ”

            It was Remy’s voice, Remy’s body, moving to cover hers… But even as he did so she looked up, saw Rachel sweep calmly past them, right into the path of the Sentinel’s hand.

            “Rae…!”

            Rogue tried to reach out, tried to call to her, but her lungs were shot, and her name only came out as a pitiful rasp as Rachel just _stood_ there as if squaring up to the goddamn thing…

            And then she did it.

            Uttered the two simple words that changed _everything_.

            “ _Dark Phoenix_ ,” she said.

            And something wondrous happened.

            In the midst of her pain and so close to unconsciousness, Rogue might almost have believed she had imagined it.

            What she registered first were the sounds.  The creaking, the grinding of a well-worn machine slowing down, the hellish symphony of the Sentinels’ onward march coming to a premature halt.  And then that tarnished and battle-scarred machine hovering, static, above them, silent and unmoving… And she thought, for a few, maddening seconds that Remy had done it, that he had made time _stop_.

            She felt his hand on hers.  Tight.  Trembling.  And she saw what he was looking at.  Rachel, reaching out, running her palm over the back of the monstrous hand, saying,

            “It’s over, my friend.  No more hurting, no more killing.  You go tell your friends.  Tell them we’re _all_ human.  And that _all_ life is worth preserving.”

            The Sentinel’s dull, unseeing eyes flickered, LED lights blinking on and off as if it had heard her.

            And then it did the unthinkable.

            It obeyed.

            It straightened itself out slowly, destroying half the room with its hulking size as it did so.

            It turned.

            It walked away. 

She closed her eyes briefly, thinking she was dreaming, and when she opened them again she saw Rachel’s face, smiling back at her with an inscrutable warmth.

            “What did you do?” she asked on a thin breath. “Was it the Phoenix?”

            And Rachel shook her head gently.

            “No.  I implanted a virus in the Sentinel program, back in the past.  I said the code word that would trigger it.  It’s passing through the network as we speak.”

            “A virus?” Rogue echoed weakly. “What…?”

            She felt Remy’s hand squeeze her own.

            “Shh,” he whispered. “They’ve stopped now, _chere_.  Can’t you hear it, Rogue?  They’ve stopped…”

            It was only then that she realised it.  The sounds of war had ceased.  She opened her ears, and for the first time since she could remember, Rogue heard the City.

 

            And what she heard was birdsong and silence.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            It was drizzling, a fine mist cascading down over the city, defying the sun from peeking out from behind silver-lined clouds.

            Kate Pryde climbed the rubble up to the apex of what once had been Logan’s hideout.

            The roof was now a half caved-in, half crumpled mess; the elevator shaft a stripped back and ugly obelisk clawing up at the skies.  It was dangerous, coming up here – she knew there were pitfalls, treacherous bits of lose masonry just waiting for a footfall to nudge them into freefall.

            Kate wasn’t scared.

            Her phasing power meant she could guarantee herself a soft landing.

            She clambered up over the edge of the gaping hole, and as she did so the drizzle petered to a stop and the sun began to edge out from behind the clouds.  There wasn’t quite a rainbow; but there was a poetic sense of hope in the fact that the rain had stopped, one that made Kate smile a little to herself. 

            There was someone on a roof several blocks away, waving a rag of cloth at her, joyous, exuberant.

            She didn’t have a makeshift flag on her, and so she waved her hand instead.

            It was communication enough, an acknowledgement of two kindred spirits brought together by one thing.

            _Freedom_.

            Or at least, something that was as close to it as they were going to get.

            The figure on the other roof, having made first contact, dropped his hand, turned, and walked slowly away.  Kate remained where she was, mainly because she preferred being up here to being down below.  Up here it was so much easier to appreciate how different everything now was.

            She walked over to the hulking frame of the Sentinel that had caused half the roof to collapse in the first place.  There it stood, right in the middle of their hideout, silent and unmoving as a stone cold statue, as some antediluvian guardian.  Kate ran a palm over the cool, unyielding metal of its forehead, over its shiny, curved smoothness.  In the growing light its dead eyes seemed to glint with life.

            “Hey,” was all she said, low, soft.

            This time there was a real flicker in the Sentinel’s eyes, a short surge of power that indicated to Kate that it recognised her presence.  She’d worked on the Sentinels before, had even helped fix the systems that kept them running.  Back at the internment camp, her skill with computers had made sure she was entrusted with fixing minor system failures, glitches and Trojans.  And though she had hated the Sentinels, she had come to admire the simple elegance of their design, the flawlessness with which they pursued their one single aim – to protect the statics; to contain and destroy mutantkind.

            What she saw now, in this docile specimen, only made her admire them all more.

            “Back up here, Kate?” Logan’s voice wryly cut in behind her. “Don’tcha ever get tired of talkin’ to that tin can?”

            She looked back over her shoulder at him, gave him a half-smile.

            “I think it recognises me,” she told him instead of answering his question.  He came up beside her with a sardonic grunt.

            “Gives me the creeps,” he commented gruffly, eyeing the Sentinel up and down, as if he expected it to suddenly lurch forward and swat him away.  It didn’t.  After a moment, Logan turned away, lighting a cigar as he did so.  Kate watched him, gauging his mood.  It was only when she was sure he _wanted_ to talk that her hand slid from the Sentinel’s smooth carapace and joined him on the roof edge.

            He spoke first.

            “Kinda weird, huh, kid?” he remarked off-handly, addressing her in the same tone he used to when she was young and at the mansion. “The _silence_ , I mean.  No ‘copters, no sirens, no Hounds screaming.  Can’t remember the last time things were like this.  After all these years, it don’t seem _normal_ not t’ be fightin’.”

            She made no reply, merely followed his gaze out over the city.  Out towards the horizon, as far as the eye could see, there were Sentinels.  Still, silent, unmoving.  Locked in the last positions they had taken before The Change.  Still alive, still running.  But refusing to kill.  And refusing to _allow_ it, period.

            “Are you ready for the meeting with Trask?” she asked him after several minutes of silence.  Logan chewed on his cigar, shrugged.

            “Yeah.  I guess.” He grimaced. “Truth is, I don’t think I’m the right person to be doin’ the negotiatin’, but as long as Rachel’s there, I guess she’ll hold me back in case I feel the overwhelmin’ need to tear him to shreds.”

            “You’ll be fine,” Kate assured him lightly.

            “Maybe.” He still looked unconvinced. “Trask ain’t got no leverage no more, Kate, but that don’t mean he’s _changed_.  Rachel levelled the playin’ field when she triggered that virus in the Sentinels, but if you think that’s gonna bring love and peace back t’ the human race, then I’m ‘fraid you’re gonna be disappointed.”

            Kate nodded.  She wasn’t stupid – she knew it.  Rachel had stepped back in time and managed to reprogramme the Sentinels by rewriting Trask’s source code; but the Sentinels were only a fraction of the problem, and everyone knew it.  With two simple words – _Dark Phoenix –_ Rachel had triggered a chain reaction, a kind of virus that had passed from one Sentinel to another in an endless circuit right back to the source – Master Mold.  The virus had rewritten the Sentinels’ prime directive to an infinitely simpler one – to protect _all_ human life.

            The effect had been instantaneous and profound.

            The military had been unable to turn their weaponry on _anyone_ without a nearby Sentinel destroying it.

            S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives had been plucked out of fights and found themselves relocated to the nearest rooftop.

            Alcatraz – which, up until now, had been in the process of being renovated into a brand new mutant internment centre for the super-powered – had suddenly seen itself the deposit bank for hundreds of bloodthirsty Hounds.

            Even mutants were not immune to suffering the consequences for inflicting violence.

            For several days, the world had come to a complete and utter standstill.

            If a human life was in danger, a Sentinel was sure to intervene.

            The situation was almost ludicrous, and by the time Trask had finally shut down his machines, most of the US army’s stockpile of weapons had been liquidated by the Sentinels themselves.  Billions – trillions – of dollars in damages had been racked up in a few short days.

            Lawlessness had resulted.  Riots, looting, rapes, murders and pillaging.  Mutants getting their own back, in the worst way they knew how.

            So Trask had turned the Sentinels back on.

            And everything had calmed down again.

            The lull had shaken the people more than all-out war had.  Everyone was scared.  Wary.  Confused.  Uncertain where to go with this bizarre situation, or what to do next.

            So that’s when the negotiation had started.  No one had wanted to go back to the status quo.  People – both mutants _and_ statics – didn’t want the old Sentinels back.  They’d been afraid of them – always had been.  In oppressing mutants, they’d also oppressed the statics.  The statics weren’t free to move, to walk through town without a Sentinel coming along and ruining their day.  And then there were the Hounds……

            Once people had begun to talk about it, it was impossible to stem the tide.  It was impossible to stop them from wanting to be _free_.  To be free from _fear_.

            No one talked about releasing incarcerated mutants, or ending the Mutant Registration Act – Logan knew, as did Kate, that it was way too early for that.  And maybe a time for such things would _never_ come.  But sitting down and talking about it – that was a start.  It was a start after over a decade of death and war and violence.  It was a step towards something _better_.

            “You don’t trust Trask?” Kate asked Logan inquisitively, and he lifted his shoulders, blowing cigar smoke into the breeze.

            “It ain’t a case of whether I trust him or not,” he answered reflectively. “Trask is only a small piece of the puzzle, Kate.  There’s Ahab, the Secretary for Defence, the President.  There’s the Friends of Humanity.  There’s the average joe on the street.  Trask’s just some bigoted businessman, when it comes down to it.  Sure, he could open up shop somewhere else, but I don’t think he’ll be that stupid.  Statics don’t _want_ Sentinels anymore, kid.” He glanced over at the one standing a little way behind him, muttering as an afterthought, “And friend or foe the Sentinels may be, but I can’t say I blame ‘em.”

            “So what will we be left with?” Kate queried.  It wasn’t just Logan she was asking.  She was also asking herself – perhaps even the city, the world itself.

            “Can’t say, darlin’,” Logan retorted gruffly. “And I ain’t dipshit enough t’ think that things are gonna be all roses from now on, whether Trask shuts those Sentinels down for good or not.  But there’s a chance for something _better_ , Kate.  And you know what?  After the all the shit we’ve waded through these past few years, I’ll take whatever the hell I can get.”

            She smiled, nodded.  Hope was such a jaded word, but it was what she felt nevertheless.

            And just like Logan, she was going to take however much she could get.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            They’d spent the entire day pretty much glued to the TV.

            At least, Jubilee had.

            As soon as Logan had made his appearance on the screen, she’d practically jumped out of her seat, announcing excitedly, “There he is!  There he is, the old fart!”

            Rogue gave a grunt of half-amused acknowledgement as Logan and Rachel followed a glowering Bolivar Trask and a studiously expressionless General Saunders down the front steps of Trask Technologies’ Headquarters for a quick and lacklustre press statement.  She doubted much had been achieved – enough to warrant Jubilee’s enthusiasm at any rate.  Of all her carers, Jubilee was the one she had to appreciate least – sometimes her fervours were enough to drive Rogue to insanity – but considering the fact that no one was trying to _kill_ each other, she supposed she had to cut the girl – _woman_ , she quickly corrected herself – some slack.

            “Looks like Trask’s gonna shut off the Sentinels for good,” Jubilee was giving an unhelpful running commentary over the news bulletin. “And the Secretary of Defence has declared a temporary armistice for mutants, at least until everyone sorts their shit out and we’ve had some proper negotiations.  Damn!” She shook her head disbelievingly. “I didn’t even think this kind of shit was _possible_!”

            “Don’t get too excited, Jubes,” Rogue warned from her bed. “You can level the playin’ field, sugah, but you can’t just _change_ the way people think about mutants by wavin’ a magic wand.  And there’ll _always_ be people that hate our guts, you know that.”

            “Sure,” Jubilee answered, looking sober for the first time in a while. “But damn, Rogue – at least people are willing to _talk_.”

            Rogue couldn’t argue with that, so she said nothing.  She yawned and suppressed the urge to stretch.  Her ribs were still a long way from fully healed, and most sudden movements were still sore.

            “Rogue’s right,” a frosty voice cut in from the doorway. “They’ll _always_ hate us.  And there are still the Hounds to deal with too, don’t forget.”

            Jubilee visibly tensed as Raven Darkhölme swept unceremoniously into the room.  Some things certainly didn’t change; and the pervasive distrust of Mystique and her Brotherhood was one of them.

            “Yeah, well,” Jubilee muttered mutinously, “you wanna know what Rachel told me?  She told me she could reverse all of Ahab’s brainwashing with a single, split-second thought.  So go try _that_ one on for size!”

            “Rachel will be a fool before she does anything as rash and absolute as _that_ ,” Mystique retorted coolly. “She may have won us a small victory, but she’s smart enough to know that if she tries anything drastic and final enough, she may well scare the statics back into a state of anarchy.”

            This time there was no pithy comeback from Jubilee.  Even _she_ appreciated the precarious balance Rachel’s disabling of the Sentinels had achieved.  It wouldn’t take a lot for it to be tipped back out of their favour.  Rogue half suspected that Raven wished Remy _had_ taken down the whole damn lot.  She would’ve been in a better position, then, to do things _her_ way.

            “I wish to speak to my daughter,” she continued coldly. “Ten minutes, and you can come back and watch this tripe.  I’m sure it’ll be on the 24-hour news channel for the rest of the day.”

            She stood there, arms crossed, looking like a tornado wouldn’t budge her.  Jubilee knew better than to argue.  Her only concession to her usual recalcitrance was to pull a face before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.  Once she was gone, Raven turned to her foster daughter.

            “Is what Logan said true?” she questioned without any other preamble. “Are they gone?”

            “Who?” Rogue asked quietly, and Raven fixed her with a feral stare.

            “Don’t be coy with me, Rogue.  You told him Rachel had wiped all the psyches from your mind.  That you’re clean now.  Is it true?  Are they gone?”

            There was never a moment in her life where Rogue wished that her mother could at least try for a _please_ and a _thank you_.

            “Yes,” she returned, in as level a tone as she could manage. “They’re gone.”

            Raven abruptly turned away.  There was something in that movement that surprised Rogue – a kind of disappointment, a resignation.  She hadn’t meant to meet Raven’s dismay with insensitivity; but she couldn’t help saying;

            “Why?  Why should _you_ care?”

            She half expected Raven to tell her that she had lost her greatest weapon, even that she had lost the only tenuous link to the memories, powers and lives of dozens of dead mutants, a rich and textured archive that could never be recovered again.

            She didn’t for the life of her expect the answer that Raven _did_ give her.

            “Then your mother is gone.”

            It took a moment – maybe two – for Rogue to realise who she meant.

            _Irene_.

            She found she had nothing to say; that there was nothing she _could_ say.  After a long and uncertain silence, Raven turned back to her.

            “Did you read the letter?” she asked, with a threadbare earnestness she couldn’t quite disguise.

            Rogue glanced at the thin paper envelope still sitting on the nightstand.  She hadn’t quite plucked up the courage to open it yet.

            “No,” she answered shortly.

            Raven gave a curt nod.  Implicit in that action was the vain hope that Rogue might have found some message, some pearls of wisdom or token of love to pass on to her.  Rogue _wanted_ to give her foster mother that reassurance – but she wasn’t quite ready to read whatever Irene had had to say just yet.

            An uncomfortable silence followed.

            This was the most conversation Rogue had had with Raven since her foster mother had actually handed her Irene’s letter.  And whilst it was an evident improvement on the war of attrition she had come to expect from Mystique, she knew they were both still painfully aware of the damaged ground that now lay between them.  She wasn’t hopeful enough to suppose they’d ever really be able to fix it again.

            “Well.” Mystique cleared her throat awkwardly, deciding it best to change the subject. “I hope Forge has been taking good care of you.  You were in bad shape when they got you in.  I thought I was going to lose you.  Again.”

            There was an accusatory tone overlaying the real concern in her voice.  Rogue laughed weakly, ignoring the spasms of pain it induced in her ribs.

            “Guess momma decided it ain’t time tah call in mah number yet…”

            Something crossed Raven’s face that looked a little like an exasperated smile.

            “Your mother couldn’t even predict your death right the first time round,” she spoke in a taut voice. “And believe it or not, it’s about the only thing I’m glad about in this whole damn sorry mess.”

            She turned aside again, to the TV, a feint to hide a smile.  Rogue couldn’t help a small smile of her own touching her lips.  Mostly, it was a smile of relief.

            The press statement was drawing to a close; there was the flicker of camera flashes on the screen, various ‘no comments’ thrown at the attending journalists, the harried commentary of the pretty, dark-haired news correspondent.  Whilst both the two women pretended to be engrossed in it all, Rogue’s cell phone vibrated softly by her side.

            It was Remy.

            _Miss you_ , was all his text said.

            It was more than enough to make her smile for real.

 

            She’d barely seen him the past few days; he’d stepped in now and then when she’d been in worse shape, usually to find Logan or someone else hanging around.  As soon as he’d satisfied himself she was okay he’d make his retreat, leaving her with the impression of his hand in hers and little else.  She hadn’t minded, not too much.  It was nice to know he was still making the effort to look in on her when she knew that he was having a hard time being around the battered shell of their hideout with a load of hostile others who’d rather see him gone.

            A couple of days back he’d finally managed to sneak into her room when nobody else was there.

            “I’m gonna be gone for a few days, _chere_ ,” he’d told her; the fact that he was already in his trenchcoat and boots was enough to tell her he was ready to go. “Gonna go help Clarity set up shop…”

            “Hm.” She’d given a ghost of a smile, touched the sleeve of his coat gently. “Nice to know you guys are still friends…”

            “Heh.” His laugh was self-deprecating. “I wouldn’t say dat, Rogue.  But it’s de least I can do, neh, _chere_?  After all de shit I put him through…”

She’d frowned, toyed lightly with his coat sleeve, and he’d given her a quizzical look, asking, “Why so sad, _chere_?”

She’d looked up at him, answered softly, “Ah’m sorry ‘bout how things turned out b’tween you guys.  Ah wish… Well, Ah guess Ah just hope you manage to figure things out and be friends again…”

            He’d half-smiled.

            “Was nobody’s fault but my own, _chere_.  I was de one put him in harm’s way, and if he still ain’t cool wit’ dat, then I can’t say I blame him.” He’d paused, and the smile on his lips widened a little. “He did ask after you though, before he said anythin’ else.  Think he kinda has a soft spot for you, hahn?   Told him you were doin’ fine… Hope I’m right, _chere_.”

            “Ah’m fine,” she’s reassured him; though his question had brought to mind the fact that they _still_ hadn’t talked about the fires of the Phoenix and what they had done to him… “How about you, Remy?” she’d asked instead. “Are _you_ okay?”

            He’d been about to answer when Logan had poked his head round the door, seen him there, and scowled.

            “Hey, stripes,” he’d greeted her, ignoring Gambit’s presence completely, “lunch’ll be ready in five. I don’t care if you want some or not.  You’re gonna get it.  And don’t forget to take those painkillers while you’re at it.”

            “Yes, suh,” she’d returned sarcastically, just as Remy had got to his feet.  Logan had passed him one last glower before leaving; and Remy leaned over, kissed her forehead, said, “I gotta go, _beb_.  I’ll be in touch.  You get well soon for me, y’hear?”

            She’d nodded silently, realising that he hadn’t been ready to answer her question just yet.  And, just as before, she’d let him go, because she was certain that this time he’d come back.

 

            Rogue fired back a quick text to him, a simple _miss you too_ , and somehow it amazed her that it was more than enough.  When she placed the cell phone back on the nightstand, she saw that Raven was looking at her out of the corner of her eye, her lips drawn tight.  She didn’t have to ask Rogue who she’d been contacted by – the smile on Rogue’s face was more than enough to tell her.  Rogue knew that Raven would never fully approve of Remy, or the fact that he was in her life.  But for some reason she’d kept her mouth shut about her foster daughter’s relationship with the wayward Cajun thief over the past few days, which made Rogue think that _maybe_ she was ready to let it go.

            _Maybe_.

            “What _really_ happened?” she asked her mother outright on an impulse. “Ah mean on that day when Amanda Mueller burned down the test facility in the Alamogordo desert?  Did Irene _really_ rescue Remy from the building that day?  Did she really take him to the Thieves Guild?”

            Mystique said nothing for what must’ve been a full minute, holding Rogue’s gaze with an almost appraising intensity.  After what seemed like an age, she finally spoke.

            “Did _she_ tell you that?”

            Her voice was oddly emotionless, and Rogue nodded; a corner of Raven’s mouth twitched.

            “Do you know what she said to me, that day?” she questioned Rogue quietly, and Rogue could do nothing but shake her head.  Raven sighed.  She sighed and threw back her head and closed her eyes and suddenly, _somehow_ , she looked as old as all the many years she had lived.

            “You were in my arms,” she intoned after a lengthy silence, in a voice that was thin and fragile and barely belonged to the woman that Rogue knew her to be. “And I wanted to leave.  But Irene would not go. ‘If you want her to live’, she said to me, ‘we must save the boy too’.  She had never spoken to me of the boy before.  Never intimated to me that he was of any importance.  Him being what he was, _who_ he was, I had always thought he was better off dead.  But she would not hear of it.  She went back into the burning building and she saved him.  She saved the son of Essex, and nearly killed herself in the process.”

            Here Raven faltered off, pain etching her face; and Rogue couldn’t help but fill in the gap, asking;

            “Is that why you hate Remy?”

            Mystique opened her eyes, looked directly at her daughter with a gaze like ice.

            “I nursed the woman I loved back to health while that child sat there and watched me with the eyes of Sinister.” She swallowed, her glance darting aside as if she could see those eyes on her now. “For days Irene teetered on the edge of death for him.  Do you know how he was made, Rogue?  The blood that ran through his veins, the vileness encoded into his genes?  The child was a weapon, and it had almost claimed its first victim.  When Irene was recovered I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I would not tolerate the flesh and blood of that monster under my wing.  So she took him to the Thieves Guild.  She pandered to their foolish superstitions.  She told them he was the Diable Blanc – the one who would come to destroy or save them all.” Her mouth twisted with disdain. “I knew then what he would mean to you.  I knew your life would depend upon his.  But I never guessed what _you_ would mean to _him_.”

            “He was just a kid,” Rogue spoke up quietly, and Mystique gave a glacial laugh.

            “Yes – a child.  A child who took so much away from me and who continued to do so as a man.”

            “You can’t blame him for the things that were outside of his control, momma.”

            And Raven smiled ruefully.

            “There is only one thing in his sorry life I cannot blame him for, daughter,” she answered softly, regretfully. “And that is for loving you.”

 

*

            “Gambit’s back.”

            Rachel stood at the kitchen counter sipping a cup of coffee whilst Rogue sat hunched over the thirteenth volume of the _Libris Veritatus_.  It was the first time she could see the books for what they were – just books.

            “Oh,” was all she said.

            She turned the page and looked down on her own death.

            Averted it may have been, but it still made her breath hitch and her heart skip a beat.

            “So,” Rachel continued after a short silence, “how does it feel?  Being ‘clean’, I mean?”

            Good question.  It was something she’d been trying to figure out for a while now.  It was strange, to go back into her own mind, to find that long white corridor and all its contents gone.  But the Phoenix hadn’t wiped everything.  There was still the mansion, the lake, the cedar tree.  There was still her refuge.  She’d walked along the banks and stepped barefoot into the water and stood there for a long time.  What she’d felt as she’d stood there wasn’t exactly an emptiness.  Nor was it a _cleanliness_.  It wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good.  It was what it was.

            It was a fresh start.

            “It’s… okay,” she replied after a moment’s reflection. “Weird… But okay.”  She turned over the page.  Everything was blank. “Let’s just say,” she added with a small smirk, “that Ah ain’t gonna be runnin’ around tryin’ t’ make up for all those lost psyches again.  Ah guess Ah miss ‘em.” _Well, only a couple… maybe…_ “But Ah don’t miss ‘em _that_ much.”

            She flipped to the back of the book and her stomach twisted.

            There it was – the image of a firebird painted in her own hand many moons ago, and yet only a few days ago – the Phoenix.

            “And how does it feel for _you_ , Rae?” she asked her companion softly.  Her gaze flicked upward to see Rachel considering her question over the rim of her coffee cup.

            “Same, I guess,” she answered. “Weird… but okay.” She set down her cup and gave a helpless smile. “I guess you could say everything feels a lot clearer now.”

            Rogue gave a silent nod of agreement.

            “And you’re the Phoenix now.  And she’s you.” She halted and gave a small, sardonic laugh.

            “What?” Rachel asked.

            “It’s just… It seems a little hard to believe, is all.  That everythin’ Irene wanted has come to pass.” She ran her fingers over the painting of the Phoenix with just the tips of her fingers, wondering whether it was _really_ what Irene had wanted… Or whether the only thing that had ever motivated her was Rogue herself.

            Or whether it had been a ploy of the Phoenix, waiting to be reborn in the world of men.

            “It’s strange,” she began again pensively. “When the Phoenix was in mah mind Ah saw the end.  Ah saw how it was supposed to _be_.  And now that the Phoenix is gone Ah try to get it back, Ah try to _remember_ , and Ah can’t.  Even though Ah know Ah _shouldn’t_.  All Ah have left is what Irene once told me.”

            “And what did Irene once tell you?” Rachel asked her curiously.

            And Rogue looked up at her, said:

            “That _you_ would be there.  At the very end.  At the end of Time.”

            They held one another’s gaze for a long while; and while Rogue had hoped that Rachel might be able to divulge _something_ that would justify Irene’s motivation in setting all these events in motion, she was to be sorely disappointed.

            “And you believed her?” Rachel asked at last. “When Irene couldn’t even see to the end of Time at all?  She could never see much beyond your death, Rogue.  To her, that _was_ the end of Time.”

            “But…” Rogue began, and promptly faltered, not knowing what else to say.

            “Rogue,” Rachel explained soberly. “I _bonded_ with the Phoenix, but I’m not _her_.  I’m not privy to her thoughts, her wishes, her desires – not unless she makes them known to me herself.  I can’t see this end Irene spoke of, and I certainly don’t have a clue what she meant when she said I’d _be_ there.  Still,” and she smiled, “I’ve seen enough over the years to know that _anything_ is possible.  So I won’t rule it out.”

            Rogue frowned.

            “Isn’t the Phoenix tellin’ you _anythin’_?”

            Rachel shrugged, placed her empty coffee cup in the sink.

            “Nope.  Not a lot anyway.  Not _yet_.  She’s louder when I power up.  But not by _that_ much. I get the feeling that right now she’s just watching, waiting… _Learning_.”

            “And that doesn’t _scare_ you?”

            Rachel’s expression was grave.

            “No.  It doesn’t.  For the first time in my life, this is something that feels strangely _right_.”

            There was nothing more Rogue could say to that, and so she merely nodded.  She had absorbed the Phoenix for a very short while, and whilst the imprint had been erased, she could still taste the raw _power_ of it – a power that was neither beholden to good nor evil, but that wished to learn the _difference_ between the two.  Maybe that was all just part of why she had bonded with Rachel – but it was impossible to tell.  Her impressions of the Phoenix’s pure soul had all but dwindled into nothingness.

            Rogue shuddered, suddenly wanting to change the subject.  She slapped shut the book in front of her and pushed it away.

            “Tell me somethin’, Rae,” she spoke. “When you went back in time and saw Trask… Why didn’t you just rewrite the whole Sentinel source code?  Why just put in this Trojan that would only work under certain conditions, instead of saving us the grief of having the Sentinels in the first place?”

            Rachel gave a small laugh.

            “If I’d done that,” she replied, “Trask would’ve noticed.  He knew what he wanted to make.  The Sentinels were an inevitability.  Besides… The only way I could be certain of affecting things _here_ , in the present, was to make the change _inside_ it, at the very moment when it counted most.  It was the only way to preserve our pasts, Rogue.  It wasn’t our _past_ we wanted to change – it was our future.”

            Rogue silently conceded she was right.  Her life had been hard, tortuous at times – but there were things about it she cherished and never wanted to lose.  And she knew, deep down, that if the Sentinels had never come into being, if Senator Kelly had never been killed and the Xavier mansion attacked… then she would never have gained some of the precious things she had now.  Nor would she have had the most precious thing of all – the life she had experienced and lived until this moment.

            “And Tanya?” she asked in a low tone.

            “Tanya will carve out her own future,” Rachel responded cryptically. “She’s in the Timestream, and I guess she’ll find her own home in another timeline – one that makes her happier, I hope.”

            Rogue was quiet at that.  She knew from the impressions Tanya’s psyche had left her that the girl would never be fully stable – but she had as much a right to live as anyone else.  Wherever she was, Rogue, like Rachel, hoped she would find happiness. 

            She glanced at Rachel, and suddenly thought how different she was from the creature she had first known.  The sullen girl, the savage Hound, the lost waif.  Now she was not just a woman – she was calm, confident, assured, satisfied with her own skin.  There was a wisdom, too, that belied her years, that seemed to instil instant trust in others.  She wasn’t surprised Logan had asked _her_ to join him in the negotiations with Trask.

            “Logan wants you to take over negotiations with the statics, y’know,” she told her archly.

            “Logan’s doing just fine,” Rachel rejoined with a grin, seemingly relieved to move to lighter topics. “He’ll do even better when I won’t be around to hold his hand anymore.”

            Rogue raised an eyebrow at her; even though, deep down, she wasn’t entirely surprised.

            “So you’re leavin’,” she half-questioned, half-stated.

            Rachel almost looked ashamed at the question.

            “You know the truth, Rogue,” she confessed quietly. “This isn’t my home anymore.  It never was.  I found my home.  It isn’t here.  And now that I can be physically embodied in the Timestream,” she added in a lower voice, “I can go anywhere I choose.”

            Rogue frowned.

            “So your home… is the Timestream?”

            Rachel gave a small laugh and shook her head.

            “No, Rogue.  It’s wherever the Timestream _takes_ me.”

            She thought of this other timeline Rachel had spoken of, the one that had seemed so much like a paradise to her.

            “You mean… to the place where Ah’m happy sometimes?”

            “To the place where we’re _all_ happy sometimes.  Just like here.”

            Rogue must’ve looked doubtful at that because Rachel gave a small sigh and added;

            “You don’t want to go there, Rogue.  You have at least as good a chance here of being happy as there.  Maybe more.  So the world itself might be a happier place there.  But at least here,” she finished with a meaningful smile, “I think you know what you _want_ just a little better.”

           

*

 

            1407 Graymalkin Lane.

 

            It had to be coming up to a decade since she’d last set foot here, and as she ground the bike to a halt right outside where the ornate gates would once have stood, her heart twisted at the pitiful sight.

            It was strange, but she had become so accustomed to seeing the mansion inside that secret place in her mind that it was almost painful to see what it was here and now in the real world.  Up that hill, where before there had stood that imposing yet comforting sight, there was… nothing.  Barely a remnant of that brick edifice to prove what had once been there. 

            She swung off the bike and stood there for a moment. 

            She breathed in a world she had left behind and could never hope to get back.  And for once there was no sadness in her.  No regret.

            Birdsong and the sound of her own bootsteps followed her up the long driveway to steps that led to nowhere.  The last time she had been here, with Mystique, there had still been some structural elements left to the building – walls, windows, pillars, staircases.  Most of that was gone now.  She stood in what would have been the hallway on wooden floors that would’ve once been brightly burnished oak but were now faded and peeling.  She walked through rooms that she remembered only for their layout and the memories they had once contained.  She shed a tear for what might have been; and then she shed no more.

            By the time she had got to the terrace the sun was high in the sky, dispelling only slightly a chill that promised the onset of winter.  Weeds were growing between the rose-coloured slabs, though a few had struggled to put forth a few small, purple flowers; she walked past them, down the steps that led to the slope Rachel had used to roll down as a child, beyond which had once lain the extensive gardens.  She stopped at the bottom of the short flight.  The mansion may have gone, lost to all but memory – but there was the lake, and there was the cedar tree, exactly as she remembered them, exactly as she had rebuilt them in her mind.  She held her breath and swallowed.  Something surged inside her and she had to stifle a small, involuntary cry.  It was a sound not of sadness, not of pain.  It was a swell of joy, of hope, of some indescribable warmth that encompassed her so entirely and so acutely that she was almost overcome.  Only when it had passed, only when she found herself walking down that slope towards this place, this sanctuary that she had made in her mind, did she realise what it was.  A release, a terrible lightness that knew no bounds.  The lifting of everything that had ever hurt or harmed her.  No more guilt, no more resentment, no more running.

            She slowed when she saw him, standing there on the shore of the lake under the furthest reaches of the cedar tree, an unlit cigarette turning between his fingers; and this time she was unable to put a name to the feeling that suddenly welled inside her.  It was a whirlpool of emotions – love, pain, trepidation.  Fear, perhaps, of where their paths lay next.

            But she went for it anyway.  She went for what she _wanted_ , and she didn’t look back.

            “Remy,” she said, walking up towards him before coming to an uncertain halt; and he turned away from the water’s edge with that small smile she knew so well.

            “Rogue,” he answered – a welcome, a warmth.

            She couldn’t move.  Her heart felt too full.

            And he flipped the cigarette into some half-hidden pocket and held out his empty palms to her.

            The only thing she could do was walk into them; and when she did she wondered how she could ever have been afraid of returning to the place she belonged.  They kissed with a slowness that boasted they had all the time in the world; and afterwards they held one another like they couldn’t stop, cradled in this place where they had begun their long journey together, where they had returned at long last after all their struggles.  It gave her the sense of having come full circle; it gave her the strength not to fear the future.

            Standing there in his embrace was the simplest thing in the world – but it was a something she didn’t ever want to let go of.

            “So how was it?” she whispered, her arms still about him.  He didn’t answer for a long time.  When he pulled away from her he couldn’t quite meet her eyes.

            “Was all right,” he replied with a half-hearted attempt at levity. “Gimme about another hundred years and we be friends again, I guess.”

            He looked almost embarrassed; it was the first time she’d heard him say outright that he had considered Clarity a friend and not just a useful contact. 

            “Don’t worry none, sugah,” she murmured. “Ah’ll put in a good word for yah.”

            “Hah!” That old bark of a laugh was back. “You be here a hundred years an’ all, if you went about tryin’ t’ put in a good word with everyone dat hates me.”

            He stepped away from her and began to walk slowly.  She followed a little way beside and behind him.  She knew he didn’t want her to go; she knew he needed a moment to collect himself.  Despite everything he was still the outcast, the _persona non grata_ , and she knew it grated against him.  That he had her trust was still only something of a consolation prize in the face of it.

            She kind of wished she could spell out to everyone just exactly what he had done for them.  That of all the men she knew in the world, he was the best.

            That, simply put, he was a _good_ man.

            But she knew he’d never let her do that.

            Good man, even hero he may be.  But he still had the insufferable pride of a thief.

 

            He stopped abruptly, turning back to the water which now glimmered under the lazy afternoon sunshine.  They stood there a moment, side by side, and listened to the birdsong.

            “Sorry I had t’ drag you all de way out here, _chere_ ,” he murmured after a moment. “I know how painful dis must be, but, well… I wanted to see you again some place dat wasn’t _there_.  Wit’ all those ears and all those pryin’ eyes.  Wanted some place dat was just you and me and de world.  Guess dis is as good a place as any.”

            She saw on his face that there was an emotion he was struggling with but didn’t know how to articulate.  She smiled faintly and looked up.  They were still standing under the canopy of the cedar tree, safe in its protective embrace.

            “It ain’t painful,” she replied after a short moment of reflection. “This is… It’s _nice_ to me.  Familiar.  Comfortin’.” She paused, stared down at her feet, at the silted shores of the lake and took in a breath. “It’s funny,” she admitted softly. “After what happened down at the Hound Pens, after Ah cleaned out mah mind and sorted out all those psyches… _This_ is the place Ah rebuilt in there.  It was somewhere Ah could go to whenever Ah felt sad or confused or down… A kind of refuge, a kind of sanctuary.  So no,” she continued, looking back up at him, “it ain’t _bad_ bein’ here, Remy LeBeau.  In fact, it’s some kinda perfect.”

            A smile flickered across his lips.  She was used to seeing all sorts of emotions when he smiled – humour, sarcasm, insolence, wit, even sadness.  But this was different.  This was a rare smile of happiness, one she had never quite seen before.

            “D’you remember dat night?” he suddenly asked her, still looking down onto the water. “Dat night we met down here on dat date?  You wore dat white dress and de butterfly pendant.” He paused and the smile slipped from his mouth.  He inhaled, he exhaled.  He lifted his eyes again and this time they were solemn. “It was _here_.  Dis was de place.  Dat was de moment.  De moment I t’ink I fell for you.” He chanced a look at her then, the wry smirk back in place. “Dat’s de _real_ reason I brought you here, Rogue.”

            She said nothing.  She’d known already – but it was different, this thrill she felt hearing him say the words _here_.  He glanced at her, perhaps expecting more of a reaction from her – but seeing the small smile on her lips seemed to be enough.  He laughed.

            “I know.  Don’t say it.  It takes me a whole fuckin’ decade to figure out I’m in love wit’ somebody,” he half-joked and she grinned.

            “Fallin’ in love ain’tcha problem, swamp snake.  It ain’t even the tellin’ someone you love them.  It’s the tellin’ _yourself_.” She sighed, picked up a stone, and threw it.  It skidded over the water briefly and was lost. “You’ve never had to _say_ it to me, y’know, Remy,” she added thoughtfully. “Ah’ve _always_ known.  But that don’t mean it ain’t nice t’ hear it, now and then.  Even if you do only say it when you’re at death’s door.  Or when the shit’s about to hit the fan.  Which leads me t’ believe,” she continued, with just a hint of helplessness, “that you have another reason for bringin’ me here.”

            She didn’t have to say what it was.  And he didn’t even look sheepish about it anymore.  Nevertheless, the expression on his face was one she recognised all too well.

            “You’re goin’, right?” she stated more than questioned; and his eyes flickered but he held her gaze and nodded.

            “Yeah.  Figured there are some things I need to settle back home.”

            “Home?” she asked curiously; and the corners of his lips lifted.

            “Yah.  Nawlins.”

            He’d never called anywhere home before.  She couldn’t help but smile herself when she heard him say the word.

            “They’ll take you back,” she assured him.

            “Mebbe.” His smile went wry. “What d’ya reckon, _chere_.  T’ink I could go back t’ bein’ a thief in de Guild?  After so many years away?”

            And she looked at him, standing there against this beautiful backdrop with the world all exactly as it should be and nothing standing in the way anymore.

            “Ah think you can be whoever you _want_ t’ be,” she answered quietly, and the corner of his mouth dimpled.

            “ _Oui_.”

            They stood there a while, letting the breeze touch them, comfortable in each other’s silence, in quiet and contented elation that everything they had set out to do had finally come to pass.  And yet… she sensed a sadness in him.  A regret.

            “Have they really gone?” she asked him, at last.

            He glanced at her.  He knew exactly what she was talking about it.  Neither of them had brought up his Omega level powers; but she’d guessed that _they_ were the part of him that the Phoenix’s fire had burned away.  And he didn’t ask her how she’d guessed.  Instead he lifted his hands – his scarred hands – and looked at them.  As if answers could be found in those marred and blotted lines.

            “I tried t’ change some t’ings,” he said in a low voice, “just some small t’ings.  Just to see if it would work, really.  It didn’t.  Those powers are gone now, _chere_.  Gone for good.”

            She frowned.

            “I’m sorry.”

            He shook his head slightly.

            “ _Non, chere_.  Don’t be.  It’s kind of a relief.”

            “But it was _you_ ,” she persisted; and he shook his head again, this time with more force. “ _Non_.  It was what Sinister _wanted_ me to be.” He turned to her fully then. “What you see here is what I am, _chere_.  I don’t regret it.  Not too much, anyway.”

            And he smiled again.  Like the old him.  She smiled back.  And then the silence fell once more.

            “So,” she began again on an inhalation, her gaze darting downward, “Ah guess this is goodbye again.” There was an awkward pause, and she quickly filled it, saying, “Ah’m guessin’ yah don’t really want me crampin’ your style down in Nawlins.  B’sides… Ah don’t wanna get in the way of any, yah know… _personal_ stuff…”

            The corner of his mouth hitched.

            “I’ll be back.”

            “Ah know.”

            And she did.  Wherever he went, whatever he did… he’d always be somewhere on the road right back to her.  And her to him.  They both knew it.

            They didn’t mind admitting it anymore.

            “I know what you’re thinkin’,” he murmured, reaching out and touching the back of her hand with just the tips of his fingers.  Her gaze flickered to his and she murmured back, “Really?”

            He gave a nod.

            “You’re wonderin’ if we’re gonna get our lifetime.”

            She thought about it.  It wasn’t the lifetime she was wondering about.  She thought she understood now.  It was already a given.  This thing drawing them together – the Timestream, or whatever it was – it was there for life.  It would _always_ be there.  It was the _separation_ that she was wondering about.  The length of time it would take for him to find her again.

            “ _Are_ we?” she finally braved asking him.

            And his fingers played against hers lightly as he said, “I want it.”

            And she said, “But…”

            And he said, “No buts.”

           

            They walked slowly together, feet almost in the water as they gazed out onto this brave new world where nothing was insurmountable anymore.

            “So what is she sayin’?” he asked her out of the blue. “Irene.  De Irene in your head, I mean.”

            And for a moment she was almost surprised at the question.

            “She’s not sayin’ anythin’,” she returned after a short pause. “She – the Phoenix – she got rid of them for me.  Erased all the psyches in my mind.”

            He almost halted mid-step.

            “Even me?” he questioned, and there was a thread of expectation in his tone.

            “Even you,” she replied.

            She could tell he was trying not to look relieved.

            “Must be weird for you…” he muttered.

            “About as weird as it must be for you to lose all your Omega level powers and not ever be able t’ get them back again…”

            He gave a small laugh.

            “True.” There was a stone at his foot and he kicked it several metres across the grass, saying, “Can’t say I feel bad about it though.  Knowin’ I was in your head, livin’ and breathin’, bein’ there for you and willin’ to tell you things in a way I couldn’t back here…”

            He trailed off, and she allowed herself to finish for him.

            “It scared the bejesus outta you.”

            And this time his laugh was self-deprecating.

            “Can’t pretend there are some things about me I’d rather you didn’t know, Rogue.” He stopped and gave her a piercing look. “Just what _did_ he tell you?”

            And she stopped too, her boots scuffing in the earth as she turned to face him.

            “Only that you’ve loved me since, like, day one.”

            And he laughed without a hint of sarcasm.

            “ _Dieu_ , I’m glad he’s gone. You have no idea, _chere._ ”

            He turned and walked again, and she followed, sensing an uneasiness in him.  She realised then just how much his encounter with the Phoenix had unsettled him, how much everything he’d tried to keep hidden had been laid uncomfortably bare.  And whilst she sympathised with that, it made her curious.

            “What did she show you?” she asked, after a lingering moment of hesitation.

            “Hm?”

            “The Phoenix.  When she judged us.”

            He said nothing for a long time and at first she didn’t expect him to reply to her question at all until he opened his mouth and spoke.

            “I saw Julien,” he said at last – three simple words delivered with such quiet pain that she knew it was a moment he had never wanted to relive.  It was a moment, nevertheless, that they both knew had driven him towards so much.

            “Ah’m sorry,” she apologised softly, but he shook his head with silent brevity, saying as he did so, “ _Non_.  Don’t be.  She showed me what I’d wanted.  She showed me a decision I made, to be de person dat I am today.” He looked at her side-on, lips pursed, before continuing as an afterthought: “The Phoenix judged me a killer, and she was right.  I _wanted_ Julien dead.  I burned him alive so I could have de woman I loved.  I paid for dat, _chere_.  I paid for it wit’ a lifetime of hate and guilt and regret.  I paid for it wit’ _you_.”

            “Me?” she breathed, and he gave a small laugh.

            “After I killed Julien I walked a path.  It ain’t a path I’m proud of, but it led me straight to you.” He paused, the smile on his lips flickering, fading. “When de Phoenix showed me dat memory, she showed me somet’ing else.  She showed me de connection b’tween dat first life I took and de place I’m in now.  De choices I made all through my life, because o’ what I did to him… Well, let’s just say I would never have got _dis_ far if it weren’t for _dat_.” He kicked a pebble absently into the water, lowering his voice and adding, “And de only t’ing I’ve got to regret for it is dat it cost a man his life.  And I took it willingly.”

            He was silent, pensive, brooding on the inescapable truth with an intensity that told her he’d done so for many days now.  She slipped her arm through his, said softly, “None of that makes you a bad man, Remy.”

            And he smiled, that weary, well-worn smile that he so often gave her when she made such a statement.

            “No?  I chose to carry on killin’, _chere_.  I chose to carry on takin’ life.  I don’t know what kinda man dat makes me, but it probably don’t make me de kind of man you’re t’inkin’.”

            She made no reply.  There was no easy way for her to say that he was exactly the man he was, and that was all she had ever wanted.  It wasn’t easy for her to even articulate to herself and so she said nothing.

            “What about you?” he asked her curiously, after a few more seconds of silence. “What did she show you?”

            Her lips tightened.

            “You know what she showed me…” she murmured.

            “Cody?” He sounded bemused. “The only man you ever killed… And that was an accident.  She had no right to judge you on _dat_ score, Rogue.”

            And she shook her head sadly.

            “No.  She had a right, Remy.”

            He gave her a questioning look and she sighed, looked down on the ground and before she knew it the truth was spilling out.

            “We were down by the river.  In the grass.  He wanted to kiss me.  Ah could see it in his eyes, the way he was lookin’ at me.  It scared me, Remy.  Terrified me.  It terrified me all the more ‘cos Ah wanted it too.”

            She bit her lip, and it was only when she looked up and found his dark eyes on hers, so patient and undemanding, that she summoned the courage to continue.

            “All my life no one had ever loved me.  And honest t’ God Ah thought Ah’d never wanted another person’s love either.  But Ah let him kiss me anyway.  Ah let him because Ah _did_ want it.  And Ah never knew it, until that moment.”

            She shuddered momentarily, held his arm tighter, drew closer to his warmth.

            “The moment we touched Ah started to absorb him,” she whispered. “Ah didn’t know what the hell was happenin’, but it felt so _good_ , Remy.  Ah saw myself the way _he_ saw me.  Ah felt all the things he felt when he was near me.  To him Ah was the most beautiful thing in the world and Ah saw, for the very first time, what Ah could _have_ , what another human bein’ could _give_ me.  It was like some kinda drug, Remy.  And once Ah’d tasted it, Ah couldn’t stop.  Ah wanted more and more.”

            She closed her eyes briefly, felt them flicker against the pain.

            “And so Ah kept on kissin’ him, Remy.  Even when Ah realised Ah was hurtin’ him, that Ah was causin’ him pain and he wanted to stop.  Ah kissed him until there was nothin’ left and Ah’d drained him dry.  And when there was nothin’ left Ah realised what Ah’d done.  Ah realised that Ah’d _killed_ him.”

            She halted, swallowing hard, feeling her breath come rough and shaky.  She had finally done it, finally confessed the thing that had made her unable to control her powers, unable to accept another human’s warmth.  It was the knowledge that she could want too much, of what her craving for human contact could inflict on another.  It was the thing that had killed her every time he had tried to touch her back with the X-Men, or tried to ensnare her with empty promises of intimacy.  It was the fear that she had wanted those things so much she would have done to him exactly what she had done to Cody.

He stopped then, turned to face her – and she saw on his face that he finally, fully understood.

            “You didn’t _know_ you’d kill him, _chere_ ,” he told her softly.

            “No,” she agreed. “But Ah _wanted_ what killed him.  Just like you wanted what you thought killin’ Julien could give you.”

            “ _Oui_ ,” he nodded seriously. “And now we come to de difference b’tween you and me, Anna.  You turned away from dat life, from all de killin’ and de selfishness and everyt’ing dat I made mine.  I embraced it.  We could’ve walked de same path, Rogue.  Lord knows I coulda dragged you down wit’ me more den once.”

            She smiled wryly and slid her hands up over the lapels of his coat.

            “We _did_ walk the same path, Remy.  In all the ways that mattered.”

            And a smile of his own played across his lips as he reached out and smoothed back that unruly lock of white hair.

            “True,” he murmured.

            They walked again, this time his arm about her shoulders and hers about his waist.  She tried not to think about anything except for the fact that they were here together and that everything was good between them.  But she couldn’t help it.  She couldn’t help wondering and doubting that there was more or less to it than _just this_.

            “So how long do you think you’ll be?” she quizzed him.

            “Dunno,” he returned breezily. “A coupla weeks, mebbe.  However long it takes me t’ get t’ings figured wit’ Jean Luc.”

            “Oh.”

            “What about you?  Will you still be here wit’ Logan when I get back?”

            She shrugged.

            “Was thinkin’ of gettin’ mah own place.”

            “Hm.” He sounded amused. “I still have de key t’ de safe house, if you want it…”

            She chuckled.

            “What?  Our li’l old house of cards?  Ah thought it tumbled down already.”

            “Yeah, well…” he rejoined seriously, “when de cards fall down, you jes’ start stackin’ ‘em right back up again.  Ain’t dat what we be doin’, _chere_?  Figurin’ out how best t’ stack up dis t’ing b’tween us?”

            She frowned.

            “Ah guess… When yah put it that way…”

            “And so it might fall down again – so what?  We try again, _chere_.  It’s what dis is all about.”

            He stopped again, slid his arm from her shoulders, and slipped a hand inside one of the inner pockets of his duster.  When he’d found what he was looking for, he held it up to her.  It was a single iron key, as scuffed and battered as the butterfly pendant she wore around her neck.

            “I made sure I locked up properly before I left,” he explained, holding it out to her. “Might be a bit dusty… But I’m sure you’ll fix it up nice.  Better den it looked de first time round anyhow.”

            She thought about it.  The room they’d made for one another.  The room she’d made for _him_ in her head.  Their shelter, their sanctuary.  Their safe house.

            Their little house of cards.

            Their _home_.

            She took the key, feeling the chips and notches on it, running her thumb over them and trying to smooth them away.  He saw the look on her face, smiled.

            “Will you be there when I get back?” he asked her.

            And she didn’t even have to think before she answered,

            “Yes.”

 

 

*          *          *          *          *


	26. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The House of Cards trilogy comes to an end - a new chapter is opened, and Rogue finally reads Irene’s letter.

_December 2014_

 

            One weeks, two weeks.  Three and then nearly four.

            Rogue stood out on the pier and stared down into the water.

            It was sleeting, thin and paltry, the air chill enough to cause her to tug the hood of her jacket further over her face.  It had barely begun to snow, and yet the children of the ghettos had already come out to play.  Rogue stood aside as two young kids – a boy and a girl – raced past her, shouting and laughing, carefree, heedless of all the pain and sadness that had been endured for so long.

            Rogue gave a tight smile despite herself.  She wondered, fleetingly, whether those children were mutants or statics.  Or whether one was a mutant and the other not.  And whether, if that was the case, they would be torn apart as adults, or learn to live in harmony.

            _But why wonder?_ she thought absently to herself. _Let them live in the moment, let them be happy._

            Their joyful screams faded as they disappeared round a corner, and Rogue was left in the wintry, muffled silence of this sullen city.  The sky was darkening, and she was beginning to think of the warmth of the little safe house with a heartfelt sense of longing.

            She sighed, her breath catching the frigid air.

            She’d just turned to head back home when she slipped her gloved hands into her pockets and felt her fingers slide over the smooth length of envelope there.

            _Irene’s letter._

            She paused and took in a breath.

            It’d been weeks now and she still hadn’t braved reading it.

            “ _What are you so afraid of?” Rachel asks her from the other side of the small dining table Rogue’s set up in the corner.  She looks down, over her coffee cup, at the white rectangle of paper that is the last material thing Irene ever gave to her._

_“Ah guess Ah’m afraid of the future,” she murmurs after a moment of reflection, and Rachel gives a sad smile, answers:_

_“But Rogue… She could never see to this point.  That letter probably tells you more about the past than the future…”_

And perhaps she was right.

            But Rogue wasn’t sure she was ready yet. 

            She had, after all, never feared uncertainty before… But now, with everything to lose once more, the wide and gaping void that was the future seemed to loom before her with some terrible, unseen force.

            Because she was used not to caring about her own life.  Used to the idea that she might give it away at any moment.  But now… now there were things to live for.  Things that depended on her for survival.  Precious things.  Things that scared her.

            And she didn’t believe Irene had never known about _this_.  She didn’t believe that there weren’t _some_ things that Irene had always _known_ would be inevitable, and every time she looked at that envelope her stomach would twist and she would think about the way her dying mother had touched her lips, her breast, her stomach and whispered: _all is as it should be…_

            Rogue shook herself.

            She’d been putting this off for too long – she knew it.  She’d been in contact with Remy almost daily since he’d left for Louisiana – sometimes via short, quick-fire texts, sometimes via long, meandering phone calls – but her heart had never quite been in them, and every time she’d spoken to him it had seemed forced and awkward to her, and she’d anticipated them with a kind of dread.  All entirely her fault, not his.  She wondered if he’d sensed it too.  Whether he heard the tremors in her voice, the gnawing uncertainty in her silences.  Whether he knew something was wrong, was _different_.

            Rogue took the cell phone from her pocket.

            She closed her eyes and hesitated.

            She saw Irene, an old woman dying in her arms.  A young girl with a long life ahead of her.

            And she made up her mind.

            She dialled his number and when the phone rang it rang for far longer than she was accustomed to.

            She almost chickened out then.  Almost ended the call before it’d begun.  And just as she was about to, that was when he picked up.

            _“Rogue,” he says._

_He’s lying naked in the single bed behind her, and he’s leaving tomorrow and she doesn’t like it, but she knows he has to do what he has to do, and if he has to do it, now is the best time to.  The temporary amnesty means state borders are opening up, and people are moving while they still can.  It isn’t about the roads.  She knows that. It’s about the crowds.  He wants to be nameless.  Faceless._

_He’s an exile and a murderer and going back to New Orleans is going to be dangerous._

_He needs the cover, and the mass migrations are the best way to get it._

_She draws the dressing gown closer around her and pops a painkiller._

_“I’ll call you when I’m there,” he promises her._

_She drains the rest of her glass, lays it back down on the nightstand._

_She can’t speak._

_“Rogue,” he says again._

_She looks down at the envelope lying there next to the glass and her stomach lurches because she suspects – and has suspected for a few days now – that something isn’t_ right _with her body and that whatever is inside the envelope will confirm her worst fears._

 _She wants to say,_ Ah don’t want you t’ go, not when things are like this.  _Or_ , Ah can’t let you go ‘cos Ah’m scared yah might never come back.

            _But she can’t.  She can’t take this away from him._

_“You know Ah’ll miss you,” she says instead, her voice set so low and thick that she isn’t sure he’s heard her._

_It’s only when she feels him curl his fist round the hem of her nightgown and tug it gently that she realises he has._

_“Rogue,” he murmurs softly, sincerely, “I’ll be back.”_

            There was the sound of laughter over the phone line, of glasses clinking and music playing, of the boisterous shouts of men and the lilting voices of women.

            At first she didn’t hear him say her name, and for a moment she wasn’t sure whether it was because of all the noise on his end or because she’d momentarily blanked completely.

            “Rogue,” she heard him clearer this time, his voice breathless with joyful exuberance.  It brought her heart right back into her mouth and she almost cut off the call right there and then, but something held her back.

            “Remy,” she answered in a voice that seemed thin and wispy even to her own ears, “It sounds like you’re busy… Is this a bad time?  Shall Ah call you back later? Ah don’t wanna interrupt anythin’…”

            “ _Non, non_ ,” his tone was louder, earnest, and she heard the sounds of the party recede into the distance till they were nothing more than a muffled droning in the background. “You ain’t interruptin’ anythin’, _chere_.  Just me and de folks havin’ a small get together.”

            “Small?” She couldn’t suppress a wry smile from curling her lips. “Sounded a little bigger than small t’ me, sugah.”

            He gave a laugh, light, easy.

            “Well, you know how we like to live it up here _en Ville_ , _laissez les bon temps roulez_ and all dat…”

            She chuckled quietly, perhaps with a strain of longing – she wasn’t sure if he heard it.  There was a moment of silence, shorter than it seemed, before he said, softly: “ _Dieu_ , Anna, I’ve missed your voice…”

            She lifted her face to the breeze, looked at the sunlight fading over the inky water.

            “Me too,” she whispered.

            “Keep thinkin’ about our last night t’gether…”

            She closed her eyes and felt the snowflakes kiss her lashes.

            “Me too.”

            Another pause.  She wanted to ask him how things were going, whether there was ever going to be a chance that he’d be accepted back into the Guild or whether this was the last time he’d ever spend with his family; but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer and so she said nothing.

            “Are you okay?” he asked at last.  It wasn’t just conversational filler. There was concern in his voice and she thought that, yes – he _had_ sensed there was something different in her.  Perhaps.  She looked back down at the ground, turned away from the wind.

            “Ah’m fine,” she murmured.

            “You sure?  You’ve seemed kinda quiet lately.”

            “Really?  We had a three hour conversation the other night…”

            “Sure we did.  But you seemed about a million miles away through most of it…”

            She gave a little grimace, answered: “Did Ah…?”

            The sound of laughter and merriment swelled in the background and she pre-empted the silence, adding quickly, “Ah should let you go.  Sounds like you’re missin’ out on some fun…”

            But he ignored the statement.

            “There’s somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ me.”

            His tone was even, assured.  He knew he was right; and she knew that he wouldn’t let it go now until she’d come clean with him.

            “It’s okay,” she told him softly. “It can wait.  Your folks are probably wonderin’ where you are…”

            “Prob’ly not,” he corrected her with a twist of humour. “Dey prob’ly too drunk to care.  I’d forgotten how crazy Henri’s birthday parties could get…” He trailed off, inhaled deep.  She imagined him on the balcony of the LeBeau mansion, breathing in the sweet New Orleans air; and her heart gave a pang.  More than anything she wanted to be there, standing next to him, her hand in his.

            “Besides,” he continued quietly, “I’ve missed you.  Guess I can take five minutes outta my busy schedule to fit you in, neh?”

            She smiled.  Just around the corner, she could hear the kids laughing again.

            “Ah guess…”

            She heard him breathe, the way he had when she’d lain next to him the night before he’d left, soft and soothing in the darkness.  What she’d heard in the sound then was what she heard now – the breathing of a man who’d been tossed about with the tide his entire life, who’d followed wherever it had led him.  How many times had she tried to catch him, only to find he’d always been right there in her palm?

            And yet why did he still feel so far away, like so much quicksand between her fingers?

            “What is it, Rogue?” she heard him ask her. “Tell me.”

            And she felt acutely just how easily it would be to push him away from her again, to lose him to that tide and perhaps – never get him back…

            “It’s nothin’,” she replied decidedly. “Now ain’t the right time.  Ah’ll call you back later…”

            “ _Rogue_ ,” he retorted, testily, warningly – and she knew it was impossible – she couldn’t hold back and he wouldn’t let her.

            She closed her eyes and inhaled.

            She thought of everything Irene must’ve known, must’ve _seen_ , and yet hidden from her.  All her certainty that what Rogue said, what Rogue did, must be _right._  

            That this _had_ to be right too.

            So she steeled herself, committed herself to saying the one thing that she knew could drive him away for good.

            “Remy,” she said. “Ah’m pregnant.”

*

            _There is silence in the safe house._

_Rogue lies on the bed she’s moved in with Logan’s help – Logan who knows he’ll never share it with her, Logan who she knows would always stand by her and a bastard child._

_She stares at the wall and Rachel says behind her:_

_“You need to tell him.”_

_She hums, non-committal._

_She can’t say why she’s afraid, she can’t articulate it, even if she knows deep down what it is that’s troubling her._

_Inside her a child is growing; inside her Essex’s DNA is carrying on._

_She doesn’t know what Remy would think about that.  She doesn’t know if he’ll be able to take it._

_“Rogue,” Rachel says slowly, patiently, reading her mind with casual effortlessness, “you’re going to have to tell him sooner or later.  What’s inside you_ isn’t _Essex.  And he has to know that too.”_

Yes – he had to know.

            But even after everything they’d been through together, she still wasn’t sure.

            Rogue sat cross-legged on the bed and turned Irene’s envelope over in her hand.

            Outside it was snowing, and for once the safe house was something it had never really been before – cosy.  Inviting.  A home.  For him and for her and now for so much more.

            She cast her mind back over every last word Irene had said to her – every hint, every clue, every obtuse reference made – and she could find no answers – no answers as to what this all meant, nor to where she was headed to now.

            And even when the knock sounded at the door, somehow, she still suspected that it could never be him.

            She got up, she crossed the room.  She flipped the locks and pulled open the door.

            He was standing there, in his trench and his boots and his five O’clock shadow; and best of all, with a smile she’d allowed herself to fear – irrationally – she’d never see again.

            “Anna,” he greeted her breathlessly.

            “Remy,” she answered.  The world was turning slowly; yet she could barely get a thought out, let alone a word.

            He said nothing.

            He stepped inside the room, dropped his bags to the floor.  He came up close to her and she held her breath as he cupped her face in those scarred, worn palms.  He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.  Delicate and tender as all the times he’d ever held back for her sake, as all the times he’d ever told her without words that this was _more than just sex and always had been_.

            And she knew then.

            She knew it really _was_ all as it should be.

            She put her arms around him and kissed him back with all the gratitude and passion the past few weeks of abstinence and fear had teased from her; and he kicked the door shut behind him and they undressed one another, and only then did she realise for sure that _nothing had changed_ and that nothing ever would.

*

            Here they were, back for the first time in years.

            They’d left this place as lovers, never expecting to return.

            And here they were, lovers still, never expecting to leave.

            She lay on her side in the bed as she had done so often before, with his lips in her hair and his arm slung round her waist, with the length of his body cradling gently against hers.  Here, in this dreamlike state of satisfaction, time had no meaning.  She was barely even certain how long they had lain here like this.

            “How long?” he asked her; the first words he’d said since he’d greeted her at the door.  And she covered her hand with his, stroked his fingers and answered: “A coupl’a months now, Ah think.”

            He was silent a long moment, casting his mind back over the intervening days and weeks, and she could almost see it coming to rest, just the way hers had done, on that one night they had met down at the docks.

            “Oh,” was all he said.

            His forefinger tickled her navel absently.  He seemed pensive.

            “Are you scared?” she couldn’t help but ask him. And:

            “Are you?” he rejoined.

            She hadn’t expected him to turn the question right back on her.  She didn’t really have to think about her answer.

            “Ah’m terrified,” she replied. “But Ah guess Ah’m a little less scared now that you’re here.” She turned her head slightly, rested it against his forehead. “You?”

            “Hm.” He pondered a moment, moving to link his fingers with her own. “I’m scared about what it means to be a _pere_.  I’m scared about what it means to leave my old life behind. And I’m scared about what it means to have a kid dat’s de grandchild of Essex.  But,” he added soberly, “I’ve thought about it long and hard enough to figure dat if I ain’t ready for dis now I’ll never be.  And as for Essex…”

            He paused and she squeezed his hand earnestly, said: “Remy, _you_ have Essex’s DNA.  And Lord knows _you_ ain’t a bad man.”

            He gave a small laugh.

            “Could you and I ever make anyt’ing t’gether dat was bad, Anna?  I don’t t’ink so…”

            She pulled in a breath and let it out slowly; and as she did so all the fear, all the tension, all the uncertainties that she had allowed to hound her melted away and dwindled to nothing.

            In the silence they lay there together and watched the snow flurry past the tiny rectangle of window.

            “So,” she finally ventured into the silence, “did they take you back? The Guild, Ah mean?”

            He disengaged his hand from hers, reached up to toy with the butterfly pendant round her neck.

            “They’ll never take me back, _chere_ ,” he murmured.

            “But—” she began, confused; but he forestalled her, continuing matter-of-factly:

            “De t’ing I did, Rogue… de Boudreaux’s won’t ever forgive it.  Dey made _dat_ pretty clear.  I’m still an exile, and I sure as hell can’t ever be a thief in de Guild again.  De best I can hope for – de best Jean-Luc could negotiate for – was for them not to kill me on sight every time I entered de city.  There’s a protocol for dat – an old Guild ritual or some shit – and from what I hear, it ain’t pretty.  But,” he added on a sigh, “if I wanna have a relationship wit’ my fam’ly, I guess I’m gonna haveta go through wit’ it.  And now more den ever havin’ a relationship wit’ them is gonna be important, neh?”

            Rogue listened, chewing on this new bit of information with mixed feelings.  For him not to have a home… to never return to the place that had been his sanctuary, that had hidden him so long from the prying eyes of Essex, that had shown him love and warmth and care… For him to have that cut off forever with such finality… She knew it had to hurt.

            “Ah’m sorry,” she whispered.

            He twisted the butterfly pendant slowly between his fingers.

            “Don’t be.  Whilst I was down there, I realised one t’ing at least.  It ain’t _home_ any more, Rogue.  Too much has changed since I’ve been away, _chere_.” He paused before adding in an undertone: “ _I’ve_ changed.”

            He dropped the pendant, brushed the hair from her neck absently.

            “I left Nawlins as a kid.  I ain’t dat kid anymore.  When I left, I thought it’d always _be_ home.  I didn’t realise dat me and it would both change so much dat it could never be home again.”

            He put his face in her neck and kissed her there softly, his fingers lightly running the length of her back.

            “So where is home?” she finally braved asking him, her voice soft and husky with the promise of his touches, and he looked at her, held her gaze and said: “Wherever you are, _chere_.”

            She smiled at the long sought after words and swivelled over onto her back as his mouth slid over hers, and for another long while nothing more needed to be said.

            It was only much later – when the sky had begun to darken – that they unravelled themselves from one another, and as he rose to make them coffee they both heard the unexpected crunch of paper at the foot of the bed.  Rogue watched on as he reached down for the tangle of sheets at their feet, only mildly surprised when he pulled out the now crumpled envelope that she had left on the bed earlier.

            “What’s dis?” he asked her, looking at the writing on the front – writing that she knew he recognised.  Again, her stomach dropped.

            “A letter to me,” she explained quietly, “from Irene.”

            “And you ain’t opened it?”

            He dangled the letter in front of her, his expression quizzical, and she took it from him hesitantly.

            “No.”

            “Why?”

            “Because…”

            She halted and bit her lip, ashamed to say it.

            “Because you’re scared it’ll tell you everythin’ you do is doomed to shit?”

            She stared at him.  She nodded.

            And he passed her such an upbraiding look that she was almost chastened.

            “Anna,” he told her archly, “lemme tell you somet’ing.  You know why I like you so much?  It’s because you always try to do what’s right.  So you fuck up now and then.  Who doesn’t?  It’s normal.  What _ain’t_ normal is meetin’ a woman who’s willin’ to sacrifice herself t’ de fuckin’ Phoenix to save de goddamn world.  So you ain’t got not’ing to worry about from de future, cos if de universe runs on karma you’ve only gotta lifetime of gold dust and rainbows to look forward to.”

            He shifted to leave the bed; and she couldn’t help adding:

            “Remy… Yah know… about me sacrificin’ myself t’ de Phoenix… You do know it wasn’t _entirely_ altruism, right?  The creature she would’ve made me… Ah would’ve been _unstoppable_.  Ah woulda been the all-powerful super soldier Essex wanted me to be.  Ah would’ve been _worse_ than that.”

            At the words he looked back at her, and the expression he hit her with was so serious, so grave, that she was taken aback.

            “Of course I know dat, Anna,” he informed her calmly. “Why do you t’ink I stepped out and took your place?”

            He said nothing more, but as she slowly digested his words, he leaned in and kissed her, briefly though passionately, before climbing out of bed and slipping on his boxer shorts.

            “So,” he began conversationally as he headed to the kitchenette, “I’m gonna be headin’ back t’ Nawlins in a few days.  Go and do whatever I’ve gotta do to square t’ings wit’ de Boudreaux clan.  Get _carte blanche_ to go in and out of de city whenever I want and not worry dat someone’s gonna stab me in de back.”

            She heard him flip on the kettle as she lay there, staring blankly at the envelope in her hand.

            “Okay,” she said.

            “So I was t’inkin’,” he continued over the clink of the mugs and the susurration of the teaspoon against instant coffee granules, “why don’t you come wit’ me, Rogue?  Should be safe for me t’ bring you, now dat I got free passage in and out of de city.  You can meet my folks, and I can show you off a bit.  Scare Jean-Luc shitless when he finds out he’s gonna be a _grand-papere_ …”

            She flipped over the envelope, slipped her thumb under the corner of the flap.

            “Sure,” she rejoined absently.

            “And then we can go on vacation.  To Paris or somethin’.  Or how ‘bout de beach? I heard there’s dis mutant-human commune dey was buildin’ over in Valle Soleada.  We could go an’ check it out.  Or…”

            She teased open the flap, careful not to rip the timeworn paper.

            “Or how about that holiday home by the lake?” she suggested, and there was a slight pause before his voice came back over the whistling of the kettle:

            “You took de words right outta my mouth, _chere_.”

            She pulled out the paper.  Two sheets, both neatly and precisely folded.

            “Ah guess great minds do think alike.”

            “Hm.” She heard the kettle click, the sound of coffee being poured. “So whaddaya think?”

            She unfolded the letter, laid it out on her lap.

            “Remy, Ah will go anywhere and do anythin’ you want, sugah.  On only one condition.”

            “What’s dat?”

            “That if you ever step out in front of a cosmic being again on mah behalf, make sure you have more t’ bargain with than just yourself.  Ah kinda prefer you alive than dead.”

            Despite his silence, she could almost see the dip and rise of his smirk at her suggestion.

            “God, I love you,” was his heartfelt declaration, and:

            “God, Ah love you too,” she replied, before looking down at Irene’s spidery handwriting and finally beginning to read.

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

            _Dearest Anna,_

_When you read this, I know I will be gone._

_And yet it seems strange, for we have only just met._

_They brought you in yesterday, with a whole consignment of other subjects, all squalling, snotty, scared little brats.  All of them had tested positive for the X-gene, for a future mutation.  I walked down the line while you were all waiting to be processed, those snivelling little packages of humanity, stripped barer than bare.  I can see why he starts young.  Open and impressionable, facing the world without blinders on your eyes, ready for moulding.  A tabula rasa, ready to be written on with whatever he desires._

_I walked past them, hearing them rather than seeing them.  Hearing their cries, their fear, their futile struggles to make sense of what lies before them.  As if they could see their destiny.  As if they could change it.  Alas! For each and every one, their fates are already sealed.  The tabula rasa, written on and sealed at birth._

_And then, in the middle of the line, there was silence.  No struggles, no cries, no, not even fear.  I stopped, and I found you.  You, Anna, brave, beautiful little you._

_I reached out and touched you.  You didn’t make a sound.  You accepted me as if you had known me all your life and more.  You alone refused to fight this futile fight as the others did.  In you there was calm stoicism, and something more.  An inner strength I could sense, the strength to fight battles when they were needed, when they would make a difference._

_I realised then, who you were._

_I realised that you were the reason I had come here, to this godforsaken place._

_I can’t see you, not with my eyes, but with my mind.  I know you have green eyes, beautiful green eyes and that white streak in your hair.  I’ve known you for a long time now, since I was a child myself.  Ever since I lost my sight, I saw you there.  A glimmer at first, a mere pinpoint of light in the darkness.  And then, over the long, strange, bitter years, glowing brighter and brighter as the events that shaped your coming into existence began to take place.  One by one they happened, small, insignificant moments that amount to this._

_You, waiting for me in that line; and me, here, sitting and writing this._

_I see two futures for you, Anna._

_I see a future where you are a cold automaton, a soldier, a war machine; the most powerful being the world has ever known or will ever see – save, perhaps, one.  You will be terrible and beautiful, and mankind will fall at your feet in dread fascination at this awesome and terrifying power you wield.  You will create with one hand, and destroy with the other.  There is nothing that will not be within your grasp.  Whatever you choose shall be yours, to make, or to take.  You will be as bright and all-consuming as the Sun itself._

_And then I see a future full of hardship and loss.  A future where you are lonely and sad and hurt and full of confusion.  A future where you will laugh and smile and frown and weep in equal turns.  A future where you are human._

_You will not be great.  You will not be admired.  You will hold no sway over the souls of this world.  You will be used, abused, impotent, struggling to make your way – as most of us are.  But in the darkness, it makes it clearer to see what you really are – a candle, a flame, burning bright, standing tall, a beacon of light through all the wasted horror of the years._

_You will be the Sun in the lives of those around you._

_A light and a warmth and a comfort._

_You will love a man, and he will love you, with all his heart and more._

_I know which future I would rather have for you, my dear.  The moment I held you in my arms, I was certain, where I had not been certain before.  I shall do everything in my power to make this second future come true._

_It won’t be easy, dear Anna.  It will involve years of careful machination, careful plotting, round after round of hide-and-seek.  Carefully crafted lies, even to the one I love.  It will require that I put you in places where you would rather not be, where you will be hurt and will have to make terrible sacrifices.  It may even earn me your enmity.  Be that as it may, I am prepared to do all these things and more, in order to make a better world.  I believe with all my heart that this is the right decision._

_And then there is the boy… Essex’s son.  I will need to make provisions for him too, for his path is as clouded as yours, and if_ his _future is not secured, then_ yours _never will be……_

 _Forgive me, Anna, for my rambling.  It is late, and I am so tired, so very tired.  There is so much yet to do, to plan, to think on.  And I must do it all alone.  But do not think I complain, my dearest.  It is for you that I do all this.  It is to make you happy.  It is for_ everything _, and you are everything._

_And so I must close this note to you, hoping that I have finally atoned for my past sins and that that happiness which I have promised you has come to pass.  I hope too, that my explanations here will help you to forgive me for the life I gave you.  Life could have been easy for you, it could have bestowed you with greatness.  And when I see your tears, your anger, please know that it will be like a sword through my heart.  But I believe that, as you hold this letter now, it will all be all right, that I will have made the right decision._

_And, so, my last prophecy I shall write here for you, and then I will put my pen down and I shall leave you – and all the world – I shall leave you be._

_You shall find what you’ve sought for all your life, and you shall pass it on to your children, and your children’s children, and their children too._

_It’s a simple thing, and it’s the best thing that life can offer._

_It’s called love, and it’s what I have for you, and always will._

_Goodbye, my dearest Anna._

_Forever your,_

_Irene._

-End-


End file.
